Some Wednesday Readings

“Battle of Jackson” Day – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Cicil War.

 

The end of “Anglo-Saxon”? – Samuel Rubinstein at The Critic Magazine. 

 

Things I Learned from Rural Living – Lara D’Entremont at Story Warren.

 

Climate Protestors Charged over Magna Carta Attack in London – Gareth Harris at The Art Newspaper.

 

Non-profits Are Making Billions Off the Border Crisis – Madeleine Rowley at The Free Press.

 

Guardians of the Nation’s Glory: The Civil War Memorials of Northwest Washington, D.C. – Kyle Hallowell at Emerging Civil War. 

 

Reading Shakespeare at Home with Teenagers – Joseph Woodard at The Imaginative Conservative.

Photograph: The Magna Carta, via Wikimedia. 

"Magna Carta" by Nicholas Vincent

If there is a document that is the fount of constitutionalism, it is the Magna Carta, or Great Charter, signed by King John of England and his barons at Runnymede, near Windsor Castle. Together with American Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta became the inspiration for the idea of citizen rights and (eventually) constitutional government. 

 

The original Magna Carta, the one containing the seal of King John affixed in 1215, no longer exists. What happened to it is a mystery. Four original copies were made at the time of the signing. Two of those copies, one of which was badly burned, are held by the British Library. The remaining two are at Lincoln Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral. Some 200 others, copied off and on during the Middle Ages, also exist.

 

For the 800^th anniversary of the signing of the document, Oxford’s Bodleian Library commissioned Nicholas Vincent, professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia, to write a history of the document – what led to it, what happened as a result, its tumultuous history, and its influence and legacy. The result is Magna Carta: Origins and Legacy.

 

Nicholas Vincent

The book is a well-illustrated, well-written account of the document. It’s a traditional historical account, but it’s also filled with facts and stories that don’t quit make the textbooks. Like how the Lincoln Cathedral original was loaned (after extensive lobbying) to the United States for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, not long before World War II broke out, and spent the war years under the protection of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. (it was returned after the war). 

 

Magna Carta is divided into two roughly equal parts. The first is the history and legacy. The second is the “Archival and Documentary Evidences,” reminding the reader that the volume is both a highly readable history and a research publication. Vincent also traces where all of the 200 copies now reside.

 

Vincent has published some 25 books and 150 academic papers in English and European history of the 12^th and 13^thcenturies. In addition to the Magna Carta and general medieval history, his areas of expertise include the Plantagenet kingship, Thomas Becket, and medieval relics. He’s taught at Oxford, Cambridge, the University of Poitiers and the Ecole des Chartres in Paris. Vincent is also a Fellow of the British Academy and a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. He’s taught at East Anglia since 2003.

 

Magna Carta tells a fascinating story of how feudal lords’ rebellious dissatisfaction with a profligate king would eventually influence and shape constitutional governments across the globe. 

 

Some Monday Readings

 

The paint was still wet: A closer look at three Van Gogh paintings heading to the Rijksmuseum – Martin Bailey at The Art Newspaper.

 

Fallen – poem and artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

The Work of Spring – Hadden Turner at Heart and Field.

 

The Biggest Threat to America’s Liberty – Douglas Murray at The Free Press on a speech by Abraham Lincoln. 

Stone Cold Love – Brian Miller at A South Roane Agrarian. 

“King John” by Marc Morris

I have to admit that my knowledge of King John (1167-1219, ruled 1199-1216) came primarily from two sources – my vague recollection of what happened at Runnymede with the signing of the Magna Carta, the 1968 film “The Lion in Winter,” and the Walt Disney 1973 children’s film “Robin Hood.”

Then I read King John: Treachery and Tyranny in Medieval England by British historian Marc Morris. It turns out my recollections were indeed vague, and mostly wrong, and certain elements of the King John character in the 1968 movie and the Disney animated film were accurate.

John was the youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. This was medieval Europe, and kings and queens and their children were almost by definition pawns on a continent-wide chessboard. All of John’s older brothers (included Richard the Lionhearted) died before him, and he became king almost my default. Richard reportedly favored a nephew, named Arthur, as his successor. The French king Philip Augustus also favored Arthur. John eventually had Arthur killed.

John had a lot of people killed. And imprisoned. He made grants of landed, cities, castles, and estates, and often revoked them. He seemed to have been forever at battle – with the French, with his brothers (he plotted against Richard), with his own earls and barons, with relatives, and often with allies (allegiances in this period were extremely fluid).

Based on meticulous and in-depth research, especially from contemporary sources, Morris draws a detailed picture of King John and his times that is complex, nuanced, and highly readable. (The British seem to excel at the writing of history, especially the “highly readable” part.) John’s fortunes ebbed and flowed; he gained all of his family’s territory in France and lost it, and often regained part of it back. He battled the king of Scotland and some of his own nobles in Wales, Ireland, and England. He relied upon mercenaries to an extraordinary degree. He argued almost continually with the pope, until he adroitly turned the tables on everyone and made the pope one of his chief defenders.

Marc Morris

The story of King John is a surprising one. Morris is more than fair in his assessment of the ruler and the man; John did many things that rightfully earned his tyrannical reputation. But one thing he wasn’t – he was not a weak, indecisive ruler who gave up his kingly rights at Runnymede. In fact, within two weeks of signing what came to be known as the Magna Carta, John was already plotting and preparing to renew his battle with the barons.

Morris is the author of A Great and Terrible King: Richard I and the Forging of Britain (2008);

The Norman Conquest (2013); and several other books on medieval British history. His doctorate on the 13^th century earls of Norfolk was published in 2005. He lives in England, and is a lecturer, broadcaster, and academic castle tour guide. He presented the television program “Castle” and wrote the accompanying book.  

King John is a history that is both absorbing and entertaining, reflected solid research and a deep understanding of whom this man was, what he did, and how he accomplished what he did in vary trying, dangerous times.

Illustration: An illuminated painting of King John on a stag hunt, scanned from the book The National Portrait Gallery History of the Kings and Queens of England by David Williamson, ISBN 1855142287., Public Domain, via Wikipedia.