This is a fully revised and extended edition of J. C. Holt's study of Magna Carta, the Great Charter, which sets the events of 1215 and the Charter itself in the context of the law, politics and administration of England and Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The author has added to the first edition (1965) further comment on the development of local liberties, the significance of the famous provision nullus liber homo, the political manoeuvres of 1215, and the later history of the Charter, and many other matters. The book is broadened by the addition of an extensive chapter on justice and jurisdiction which embodies an entirely new approach to some of the most crucial and longest-lasting provisions of the Charter. New appendices have been added. Some of these are concerned with the political crisis of 1213–15, for example the alleged meeting at Bury St Edmunds; others examine the Anglo-Norman translations of the Charter and related documents, or the development of perpetual liberties. References are brought up to date throughout, and there is an entirely new index.

‘ … a remarkable achievement, combining as it does exact scholarship with a lively and vigorous style … It is its masterly setting of the Great Charter and its place in English history … that makes this book so notable a contribution to the history of political thought in action.’

Source: Political Science Quarterly

‘Professor Holt has written the first full-scale work to place Magna Carta firmly in its historical setting. This scholarly and well-written book will survive to celebrate many an anniversary of its own.’

Source: Sunday Telegraph

‘It will remain one of the most exciting books to be written on a well-worn theme.’

Source: History

‘[Holt] has an unrivalled command of the forms of action and the machinery of government. He treads this ground as a master and no one can read his work without a deep respect for the care and accuracy with which he has assembled the details which give a fresh look to one of the most familiar stretches of English history.’

Source: English Historical Review