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My tuppence worth: while Magna Carta 1215 excluded much of the population & was soon annulled, it's worth noting that later legislators in the reforms of 1258-9 sought to fix this & provide remedy to all people who had been hard done by under unjust & oppressive rule. (1/5)
The 13C history of Magna Carta is complex, because of 1215 but also because it was revised, reissued, commented upon and supplemented to try to make measures more effective & take account of changing circumstances, ultimately to find ways of holding government to account. (2/5)
Crucial to this is the way it was publicised extensively by the clergy to ensure that all people were familiar with its contents, which had a 'profound effect on the political awareness of English society' - see Felicity Hill's article of 2016 (£): https://academic.oup.com/histres/article-abstract/89/246/636/5603497?redirectedFrom=fulltext (3/5)
The details were sometimes missed, but people had a strong sense that this mattered & there were ways of restraining rule to what was just & fair. For the variant readings of MC in 13C, see David Carpenter's survey (soon to have a revised edn.) http://magnacartaresearch.org/read/magna_carta_copies (4/5)
All of this to say that, having spent a good part of my research on how different constituencies sought to deal with rulers who they felt to be inept or unjust, this discussion warms my heart rather than causing me to hold my head in my hands. (5/5)
