Constitutional history -- England -- Sources; Magna Carta
(50) We will remove completely from their offices the kinsmen of Gerard
de Ath, Peter, Guy, and Andrew de Chanceaux, Guy de Cigogne, and in
future they shall hold no offices in England. The people in question
are Engelard de Cigogn, Geoffrey de Martigny and his brothers, Philip
Marc and his brothers, with Geoffrey his nephew, and all their
followers.
* As soon as peace is restored, we will remove from the kingdom all the
foreign knights, bowmen, their attendants, and the mercenaries that
have come to it, to its harm, with horses and arms.
* To any man whom we have deprived or dispossessed of lands, castles,
liberties, or rights, without the lawful judgement of his equals, we
will at once restore these. In cases of dispute the matter shall be
resolved by the judgement of the twenty-five barons referred to below
in the clause for securing the peace. In cases, however, where a man
was deprived or dispossessed of something without the lawful judgement
of his equals by our father King Henry or our brother King Richard, and
it remains in our hands or is held by others under our warranty, we
shall have respite for the period commonly allowed to Crusaders, unless
a lawsuit had been begun, or an enquiry had been made at our order,
before we took the Cross as a Crusader. On our return from the Crusade,
or if we abandon it, we will at once render justice in full.
* We shall have similar respite in rendering justice in connexion with
forests that are to be disafforested, or to remain forests, when these
were first aforested by our father Henry or our brother Richard; with
the guardianship of lands in another persons fee, when we have hitherto
had this by virtue of a fee held of us for knights service by a third
party; and with abbeys founded in another persons fee, in which the
lord of the fee claims to own a right. On our return from the Crusade,
or if we abandon it, we will at once do full justice to complaints
about these matters.
* No one shall be arrested or imprisoned on the appeal of a woman for
the death of any person except her husband.
* All fines that have been given to us unjustly and against the law of
the land, and all fines that we have exacted unjustly, shall be
entirely remitted or the matter decided by a majority judgement of the
twenty-five barons referred to below in the clause for securing the
peace together with Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, if he can be
present, and such others as he wishes to bring with him. If the
archbishop cannot be present, proceedings shall continue without him,
provided that if any of the twenty-five barons has been involved in a
similar suit himself, his judgement shall be set aside, and someone
else chosen and sworn in his place, as a substitute for the single
occasion, by the rest of the twenty-five.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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