Constitutional history -- England -- Sources; Magna Carta
14. And for obtaining the common counsel of the kingdom anent the
assessing of an aid (except in the three cases aforesaid) or of a
scutage, we will cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots,
earls, and greater barons, severally by our letters; and we will
moreover cause to be summoned generally, through our sheriffs and
bailiffs, all others who hold of us in chief, for a fixed date, namely,
after the expiry of at least forty days, and at a fixed place; and in
all letters of such summons we will specify the reason of the summons.
And when the summons has thus been made, the business shall proceed on
the day appointed, according to the counsel of such as are present,
although not all who were summoned have come.
15. We will not for the future grant to any one license to take an aid
from his own free tenants, except to ransom his body, to make his
eldest son a knight, and once to marry his eldest daughter; and on each
of these occasions there shall be levied only a reasonable aid.
16. No one shall be distrained for performance of greater service for a
knight’s fee, or for any other free tenement, than is due therefrom.
17. Common pleas shall not follow our court, but shall be held in some
fixed place.
18. Inquests of novel disseisin, of mort d’ancester, and of darrein
presentment, shall not be held elsewhere than in their own county
courts and that in manner following,—We, or, if we should be out of the
realm, our chief justiciar, will send two justiciars through every
county four times a year, who shall, along with four knights of the
county chosen by the county, hold the said assize in the county court,
on the day and in the place of meeting of that court.
19. And if any of the said assizes cannot be taken on the day of the
county court, let there remain of the knights and freeholders, who were
present at the county court on that day, as many as may be required for
the efficient making of judgments, according as the business be more or
less.
20. A freeman shall not be amerced for a slight offense, except in
accordance with the degree of the offense; and for a grave offense he
shall be amerced in accordance with the gravity of the offense, yet
saving always his “contentment;” and a merchant in the same way, saving
his “merchandise;” and a villein shall be amerced in the same way,
saving his “wainage”—if they have fallen into our mercy: and none of
the aforesaid amercements shall be impsed except by the oath of honest
men of the neighborhood.
21. Earls and barons shall not be amerced except through their peers,
and only in accordance with the degree of the offense.
22. A clerk shall not be amerced in respect of his lay holding except
after the manner of the others aforesaid; further, he shall not be
amerced in accordance with the extent of his ecclesiastical benefice.
23. No village or individual shall be compelled to make bridges at
river-banks, except those who from of old were legally bound to do so.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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