1 - Magna Carta … Holy Grail?

Summary

Magna Carta is revered by citizens and human rights activists all over the world. It has become a symbol for limited government and constitutionalism used by political theorists, constitutional drafters, political elites and even ordinary citizens to justify constraining political power. Thus, when Jay-Z entitled his most recent album Magna Carta … Holy Grail, he was signalling his aspiration to constrain the power of the recording industry, just like Magna Carta was meant to constrain King John. The irony is that ‘[i]n 1215 Magna Carta was a failure’. King John completely ignored the edicts set forth in the Charter, which led England into the very civil war that the Great Charter was meant to prevent. Why, then, do we celebrate this historic piece of parchment? Put differently, how has the significance of Magna Carta come to be equated with that of the Holy Grail?

This volume sets out to answer the question. In doing so, it makes two contributions to the extant literature. First, it commemorates Magna Carta's 800th anniversary by detailing its influence in the United Kingdom and abroad. The book reviews the existing historical and legal literature on Magna Carta as well as providing some new insights about its influence. These new insights are generated by moving to a more systematic conceptualisation of influence. Second, the volume begins a dialogue with the literature on constitutional design. This is a quickly evolving, interdisciplinary literature that spans economics, history, law, political science and sociology. We believe that those interested in constitutional design have much to learn from modern understandings of Magna Carta, and we therefore provide some examples of how reflecting on Magna Carta can provide lessons for those interested in modern constitutions.

This introductory chapter proceeds in three sections. The first provides a bit of history about the making of Magna Carta and its contents. The second defines what we mean by influence and provides a typology for analysing the influence of Magna Carta.