"Art. 12. That no escuage or extraordinary aid shall be imposed in our kingdom, except by the national council of our kingdom, unless it be to ransom our person, to equip our eldest son as a knight, and to marry our eldest daughter: and for these last cases only a reasonable amount of aid shall be demanded, &c." "Art. 14. In order to hold the national council of the kingdom, for the purpose of imposing any other aid than for the three cases heretofore mentioned, or to impose an escuage, we will call together the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and great barons, individually and by letters from ourself; and we will assemble together by means of our viscounts and bailiffs, all those who are directly dependent upon us. {314} The great convocation shall be made on a fixed day, namely, at intervals not greater than forty days, and in an appointed place; and in the letters of convocation we will expound the reason of such convocation; and the convocation thus made, the business shall be transacted on the day appointed, by the council consisting of those who are present, although all those who have been summoned may not have arrived." This charter is the first document in which we find a distinction established between the greater and lesser barons, and the higher and lower clergy; an important fact, since it may perhaps be regarded as the original source of the separation between the two Houses of Parliament. Lastly, several articles have for their object to limit the rights of the king on the lands of his tenants, to fix the amount of fine imposed on beneficiaries according to the gravity of their offence, to determine the length of time during which lands should remain sequestrated on account of felony; in one word, to give to the barons greater independence and security than they had ever before enjoyed. These are the principal enactments of the Great Charter in favour of the nobility; up to this point, we find only sanctions given to particular privileges, we have only met with that which favours the interests of certain classes in society. But it contains also clauses of wider and more general application; it has for its object also the interests of the nation as a whole. First of all, almost all the immunities granted to the barons with respect to the king, the vassals obtained with respect to their lords. These were not allowed from this time to collect aids and escuages on their lands, except in the same cases and in the same manner as the king. (Art. 15.) Justice was for the future to be administered in a fixed and uniform manner; the following are the articles in which this important provision is expressed:-- "Art. 17. The court of common pleas shall not follow our court (_curia_), but shall be held in a fixed place.