Posted on 06/10/2015 12:17:22 PM PDT by Academiadotorg
Here might be a workable way to look at academia: That which academics dismiss is probably worth exploring. “There is quite a list of academics who question the importance of the Magna Carta,” University of Chicago law professor Richard Helmholz pointed out in a lecture at the Cato Institute on June 4, 2015. “They dismiss it as baronial and backward looking, an immediate failure and talk about the myth of the Magna Carta.”
“I don’t think that view is correct.”
Certainly, the sections of the Magna Carta he supplied to accompany his talk hold up well in translation:
• No unlawful imprisonment
• Religious freedom
• Punishment that fits the crime
Moreover, in many ways, Magna Carta was remarkably forward looking for a medieval document. “No widow shall be compelled to marry, so long as she prefers to live without a husband; provided always that she gives security not to marry without our consent, if she holds of us, or without the consent of the lord of who she holds, if she holds another,” Chapter Eight of the Magna Carta reads.
“Magna Carta was a municipal law in harmony with national law and stemming from the law of nature and the law of God,” Professor Helmholz pointed out at Cato.
This guy nails the importance of Magna Carta:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/magna-carta-eight-centuries-of-liberty-1432912022
Steyn had a good piece on it too:
http://www.steynonline.com/6841/the-field-where-liberty-was-sown
By the way, my homeschooler and I are reading a few books this month on the topic. She just turned 11. You cannot start too early on the importance of this. Her grandfather is a deputy and thinks it is stupid. That alone should tell us how important it is. Perhaps Magna Carta AND the US Constitutoin should be taught in police academies.
They wrote Magna Carta in Latin, like nearly all legal documents at the time. Old English is incomprehensible to Modern English speakers, for example:
þær mæg nihta gehwæm niðwundor seon, fyr on flode. No þæs frod leofað gumena bearna, þæt þone grund wite;
Imagine if every schoolkid every day was exposed to the Ten Commandments and our Bill of Rights.
We wouldn't be on the cusp of outright tyranny.
It was unusual for kings of England to know English. They knew French, Latin, sometimes German and occasionally English. Nearly all kings of that era were bi or trilingual.
Israel, New Zealand and Britain do not have written constitutions.
After 800 years, Britain finally asks: Do we need a written constitution?
þær mæg nihta gehwæm niðwundor seon, fyr on flode. No þæs frod leofað gumena bearna, þæt þone grund wite;
Anglo-Saxon...gotta love it...
is this fro Beowulf?
I have a copy from 1721
Sec. 8, for example, begins: Nulla vidua distringatur ad se maritandum, dum voluerit vivere sine marito... (No widow shall be compelled to marry, so long as she prefers to live without a husband...)
For about 200 years after the Norman Conquest, none of the kings of England spoke English, the language of the common people (by then they were speaking what is now called Middle English rather than Anglo-Saxon or Old English). The kings and nobles spoke French.
One legacy of that era is that names of animals in modern English are derived from Anglo-Saxon (a Germanic language) while often the meat from that animal has a name derived from French (reflecting the form of the animal the elite came in contact with):
cow vs. beef
pig vs. pork
calf vs. veal
sheep vs. mutton
It is.
John is interesting in that he was the first king since Harold II who was fully English literate (read, write, speak). His father, Henry II, understood spoken English to an extent. His mother Elanor knew none. There is no definitive proof that Richard I knew English, but considering how much time he spent around other French speakers and how little time he spent in England, he probably had little use for it.
Interestingly, John’s son, King Henry III, never bothered to learn English.
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