Magna Carta. Modern Democracy Is 800 Years Old Today.

originally posted by: Vector99
Exactly, it is really hard to celebrate a document that ensured slavery, There will always be an overlord making sure you are ok. I guess people are ok with that if they are comfortable?

While the Magna Carta was directed towards the Barons, the King and "free men", the peasants - i.e. the "common man" benefitted through time. To write-off a document because it was not 21st century, is not clever. The Magna Carta set the scene from which change happened, and if people are unable to acknowledge that fact then that's sad.

a reply to: paraphi

You can bet without it we would be less free now.

originally posted by: paraphi
a reply to: the2ofusr1
A poor grasp of the law, methinks.

To the OP. The Magna Carta is a critical document that started England down a long, and often lonely path. Little things like habeas corpus, civil liberties and the ability for the incumbent monarch to be "controlled", are all important in those societies that are now liberal democracies.

Quote from the Magna Carta...

To no one will We sell, to none will We deny or delay, right or justice

British Library

Its fascinating that 800 years after everyone realized that justice is not to be sold, the only consistent legal principle we have left today in the USA is "innocent until proven broke". Yes, justice is reserved for those with $2,000 for the retainer plus $3,000 for the over-charge fees.

800 years? A drop in the bucket. The human race has been around far far longer than that. So, in the midst of fretting and feigning and forging towards democracy, with the French Revolution and the American founding documents and the various kicking and screamings of troubled folk looking for freedom, to the dignity and self-knowledge of people like Alice Paul and Dr. King, up and around the one-step forward, half-step back progress of this rumbling giant, the experiment is working fairly well, thank you ancestors-who-cared. Now freedom and democracy, always under attack (yawn), somehow bob to the top like a cork. Let freedom ring, or at least put it on hold and grab a sandwich. Happy birthday Magna Carta! And many many more.

a reply to: alldaylong

The original 1215 Magna Carta directly refers to Jews. The later 1216, 1217, 1225 and later versions do not.

The Magna Carta (originally known as the Charter of Liberties) of 1215, was an attempt by the Archbishop of Canterbury to broker peace between the king and the barons through a legal document that curtailed the king’s powers. Why have clauses 10 and 11 been redacted from the official Magna Carta Trust website as well as the US National Archive website?

Why the Magna Carta anniversary celebrations will be missing two crucial paragraphs
by Francis Carr Begbie

Why have clauses 10 and 11 been airbrushed from history? These were the ones inserted in the original charter to protect widows and underage heirs specifically from Jewish moneylenders by restricting the recovery of debt out of the deceased debtor’s estate.

But they are nowhere to be found in the official Magna Carta Trust website nor the US National Archive website which instead features the text of the later — and much shorter — 1297 version. The two clauses in the original 1215 Great Charter are:

10. If one who has borrowed from the Jews any sum, great or small, die before that loan be repaid, the debt shall not bear interest while the heir is under age, of whomsoever he may hold; and if the debt fall into our hands, we will not take anything except the principal sum contained in the bond.

11. And if anyone die indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if any children of the deceased are left under age, necessaries shall be provided for them in keeping with the holding of the deceased; and out of the residue the debt shall be paid, reserving, however, service due to feudal lords; in like manner let it be done touching debts due to others than Jews.

The Occidental Observer found, “What is interesting about clauses 10 and 11 is how prosaic and matter of fact they are… There are no diabolical fantasies of blood libel or any religious content at all. It is just business that is at issue, but underlying the dry prose is anger at Jewish moneylending.”

Among the 3,500 Latin words written and signed upon calfskin that day were two “clauses” (a system of 63 sections was devised in 1759) that directly dealt with England’s Jews.

www.timesofisrael.com...

Jews were relative newcomers to the land, brought to England from France as bankers by William the Conqueror of Normandy in 1066. Legally treated as chattel by the king, the Jews of Europe, rejected the Catholic Church’s stringent reading of the biblical commandment against charging a “brother” interest as a prohibition against all loans, instead reading the biblical verses as an interdiction against lending to coreligionists.

Since throughout most of Europe, Jews were forbidden to own or work land, they created a niche position through which Christians could obtain funds and Jews a livelihood.

It could have been the beginning of a beautiful relationship, and it was — for some. But in practice, the king, as “owner” of the Jews, was obviously the biggest beneficiary.

‘Jews were accidental agents in a substantial land transfer to the king, and in increasing his powers nationally’

Any forfeited land — which could not legally be held by Jews — “reverted to their master, the king, who systematically built up his holdings. It meant that the Jews were accidental agents in a substantial land transfer to the king, and in increasing his powers nationally,” wrote Rabbi Jonathan Romain in a 2014 Jewish Chronicle piece.

By the time of King John’s father, Henry II, most major English towns and cities had a flourishing Jewish community. Henry used the Jews as tax collectors and, taxing and fining the Jews heavily as well, put them under royal protection. But that “protection” was precarious at best. When the wealthiest man in England, Aaron of Lincoln (1125-1186), died, all his assets were “inherited” by the state coffers.

Ultimately, to document loans and the Jews’ holdings, the Exchequer of the Jews was founded. A division of the Court of Exchequer at Westminster, it also operated as a system of regulating taxes and court cases against the Jews in England from the late 1190s.

The question remains:
Why has the historic document in the Library of Congress been redacted?