Part 2
– Church or State
– The English "Inclosure Acts"
– Consequences of Enclosure of Common Land
– Religious persecution and political upheaval
– The World of Seventeenth-Century English Dissenters
– "The Great Rebellion"
– Cromwellian Protectorate, 1649 to 1660
Part 3
– Voltaire's History of the Quakers
– How the Quaker Terror led to fulfillment of The American Dream
– The English Bill of Rights, 1689
The name ‘Celtic’, from the Greek, Keltori: ‘the hidden people’, referred to related tribes across ancient Europe. The Celtic languages (Foras na Gaeilge, 1999) are believed to have come from Common Celtic which separated from Indo-European roots in Sanskrit as far back as 2000 BCE. Today, this cultural group name has come to represent ‘ancient’ cultural memory shared by peoples on the Western rim of Europe and the Atlantic islands pre-Roman Empire expansion.
European Iron Age (1200 BC - 600BC)
Over many eons, Celtic 'cultures' of continental Europe followed diplomatic rules strictly followed by all 'related' tribal communities - until the 4th century BC: when the Romans broke those diplomatic territorial rules, the Gauls Sacked Rome in July 387 BC.
"It’s important to note that Vattel did not see the application of natural law to these and other matters as resulting in a borderless world or the extinguishing of sovereign states."
- Samuel Gregg, 2019, Bringing Natural Law to the Nations
Roman Republican period (509 BC to 27 BC)
The Gallic sack of Rome 360 BCE "...would be long remembered by Romans, and would finally be avenged 3 1/2 centuries later with Caesar's conquest of Gaul. ... It is important to note that much of the ancient source material, such as Livy, Polybius and Diodorus Siculus, is steeped in legend or, especially on the part of Livy, biased though nationalism. - United Nations of Roma Victrix (UNRV)
"By human law, one says, 'This estate is mine, this house is mine, this servant is mine.' This is therefore by human law - by the law of the Emperors." – Augustine of Hippo (354-430AD)
– Avila, (2004), Ownership: Early Christian Teaching, p.1
"...Out of sight of the shores of the conquered, we could keep even our eyes unpolluted by the contagion of slavery. To us who dwell on the uttermost confines of the earth and of freedom... Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace." (complete text and reviews)
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. . The societies of medieval Europe were in no way exceptional in this regard. Friedman has highlighted how the women and children of opposing forces were consistently targeted by both Christian and Muslim armies during the Crusading period. A significant number of these captured women were subsequently enslaved whilst "the sexual abuse of female captives was more or less taken for granted. Women were raped...as a matter of course, and this was considered a normal part of warfare." The early eleventh -century Norman historian Dudo of St. Quentin clearly characterised the plunder of a territory, and the abduction of its women, in terms of violent sexual penetration. When Dudo related the story of how his Viking forebear, Alstignus, had undertaken a frenzied raiding enterprise on the town of Luna he placed the following words in the warrior leader's mouth:
"Let us pillage the whole province and burn this city.
Lead all the more prisoners and spoil to the ships.
Let the inhabitants of this land feel that we have been within their borders."
Defining Celtic history remains a contentious issue among scholars.
Professor of Archaeology, Simon James, University of Leicester, primarily reports on conflict across Iron Age Europe: "The sword was central to the history of the era. . . In particular, I have examined ‘the Celts’ ancient and modern, and the nature of 'Romanization'." - excerpt from his 2010 YouTube lecture:Ancient Island Celts: Invention or Rediscovery, P.1. According to Professor Simon James, in The Atlantic Celts, 1999, the name "Celtic" was first given to the peoples of the British Isles in the 1700s by the pioneering linguist,
"Welshman Edward Lhwyd, who demonstrated that Scots and Irish Gaelic, Welsh, Breton and related languages were also related to the extinct tongue of the ancient Gauls. He chose to call this family of dead and living languages "Celtic". Soon it was being used as an ethnic label for living peoples, and was applied to ancient monuments too." - Simon James, The Atlantic Celts, 1999
Professor of History Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol, specialises in Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and Contemporary Paganism: Gods of Prehistoric Britain, September 2022.
Summary: Britain has one of the richest of all pagan heritages in Europe, defined as the textual and material evidence for its pre-Christian religions. The island is possessed of monuments, burial sites and a range of other remains not only from several distinct ages of prehistory, but also from three different major historic cultures.
Transcript and downloadable versions of this lecture are available from the Gresham College website.
Chronicling the Settlement of the Anglo-Saxons Bede's Chronicles, about AD 731, aka The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Latin: Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum), written by the Anglo-Saxon theologian and historian, Bede (b. 672/673 -735), is a history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between the pre-Schism Roman Rite and Celtic Christianity - on the history of the conversion to Christianity of the Anglo-Saxon tribes. Bede is credited with originating the dating of events from the time of the birth of Christ - i.e., AD (anno Domini, “in the year of our Lord”). He was canonised St. Bede the Venerable in 1899.
Britannica Excerpt:
Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica leaves gaps tantalizing to secular historians. Although overloaded with the miraculous, it is the work of a scholar anxious to assess the accuracy of his sources and to record only what he regarded as trustworthy evidence. It remains an indispensable source for some of the facts and much of the feel of early Anglo-Saxon history. >>>more
Excerpt: One of the major causes of the sudden economic growth was the slave trade. Following the rise of the Arab empires, the Arab elites created a major demand for slaves with European slaves particularly prized. As a result of Charlemagne's wars of conquest in Eastern Europe, a steady supply of captured Slavs, Avars, Saxons and Danes reached mostly Jewish merchants in Western Europe, who then exported the slaves via Ampurias, Girona and the Pyrenees passes to Muslim Spain and other parts of the Arab world. The market for slaves was so lucrative that it almost immediately transformed the long-distance trade of the European economies. The slave trade enabled the West to re-engage with the Muslim and Eastern Roman empires so that other industries, such as textiles, were able to grow in Europe as well. >>>more
“The upsurge of heresy was certainly not unconnected to the “terrors of the year 1000,” the great wave of religious dread that gathered in anticipation of the millenary of Christ’s passion. The call to repentance and purification was heard on all sides, and on all sides brotherhoods dedicated to renunciation were being formed, some of them rather dubious.”
– George Duby, 1983, The Knight, the Lady and the Priest, p. 107 (See notes: Part 1)
Both Millenarianism and Millennialism represent analysis of the prophecy of the “Second Coming of Jesus Christ” expected at the turn of the year 1000AD: The prophecy promised that all true Christians would ascend, body and soul, into Heaven: “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words." (1 Thessalonians 4:17-18 New King James Version).
Non-ascension was interpreted by Catholic leaders as a sign that they must ‘take back’ the "Holy Land" of Jerusalem so that the prophecy may be the fulfilled. And so began the Crusades.
A thousand years later, the prophecy has been reinterpreted:
“The Ascension doesn't indicate Jesus' absence, but rather it tells us that He is living among us in a new way.” – Pope Francis, 2013
Impacts of Norman Conquest
A new fascination with the British mythos, which followed the successful Norman invasion of England in 1066, was taken up by the nobility throughout the courts of Western Europe. The new Norman and Plantagenet Kings of England sent out scholars, mainly French, to collect and record local histories, legends and beliefs throughout the islands; England, Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, etc., and, a hundred years later, in Ireland.
The impact of "feudalism" on England:
The "common people of England" felt they were being exploited by
"a foreign ruling-class".
"By 1066 towns were already a recognisable feature in England. . . Domesday Book is inconsistent in its treatment of towns providing a very incomplete record; we therefore need to be careful in drawing firm conclusions from the information it gives us."
During the reign of King John (1199–1216), Temple Church served as the royal treasury supported by the Knights Templars who had gained enormous financial influence as proto-international bankers by allowing religious pilgrims to deposit assets in their home countries and withdraw funds in the Holy Land. They were financial and political supporters of King John of England, but when the English barons rebelled against taxes King John imposed upon them to finance his wars, John was forced to sign the Magna Carta, against the wishes of Pope Innocent III, for which King John was forced to swear fealty to Pope Innocent III and make amends by agreeing to an annual payment to the Church.
The Templars dedicated themselves to the defence of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem. The city had been captured by the first crusade in 1099 and pilgrims began to stream in, travelling thousands of miles across Europe. . . . A pilgrim could leave his cash at Temple Church in London, and withdraw it in Jerusalem. Instead of carrying money, he would carry a letter of credit. The Knights Templar were the Western Union of the crusades. . .
The Templars were not the first organisation in the world to provide such a service. Several centuries earlier, Tang dynasty China used "feiquan" - flying money - a two-part document allowing merchants to deposit profits in a regional office, and reclaim their cash back in the capital. But that system was operated by the government.
Templars were much closer to a private bank - albeit one owned by the Pope, allied to kings and princes across Europe, and run by a partnership of monks sworn to poverty. >>>more
The Magna Carta (Latin: The Great Charter) Key Facts & Summary – The Great Charter, drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and sealed on June 15, 1215, by King John of England, "under threat of civil war and reissued, with alterations, in 1216, 1217, and 1225" constitutes a contract for the recognition of reciprocal rights and "Due Process" as the basis of common law throughout the world.
"... a brief sketch of the circumstances in which the Great Charter (Magna Carta) came to be written. ... not just for the terms of the agreement per se or the important extension of baronial rights to the people at large that it contains but to publish the enforcement clause at the end. In the case of King John, ...deriving his authority from God as confirmed by the Vicar of Christ in Rome, this contractual liability was for him a call to civil war.
. . . Both groups regretted the loss of their privileges due to John’s abaseness before the Pope. … Having made this agreement, King John had the Pope proclaim that his agreement had been coerced and was not enforceable.
The barons were all excommunicated by the Pope... It was several years later in 1225 that a revised version was published, given freely by the King, that extended the rights contained in the charter to all citizens. It appears to have been the work of the Archbishop Langton..."
- Roger Houghton, A Peoples' History 1793 – 1844 from the newspapers: Magna Carta, May 2020
UCBlog: In The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All, author Peter Linebaugh draws on primary sources to construct a wholly original history of the Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest. In his introduction, he describes the aim of the charters, and the book:
Excerpt: The message of the two charters and the message of this book is plain: political and legal rights can exist only on an economic foundation. To be free citizens we must also be equal producers and consumers. What I shall call the commons—the theory that vests all property in the community and organizes labor for the common benefit of all— must exist in both juridical forms and day-to-day material reality. . . . If Magna Carta is to be recovered in its fullness, we must bring with it all that can be obtained from these interpretations. The first one calls for the abolition of the commodity form of wealth that blocks the way to commoning. The second one gives us protection from intrusions by privatizers, autocrats, and militarists. The third one warns us against false idols. The fourth renews the right of resistance.
– Peter Linebaugh, author of The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All, 2009, UCPress
The Principles of Magna Carta: Under threat after 790 years of evolution?
by Professor Sir Robert Worcester, chairman, Magna Carta Trustee,
15 June 2005
Excerpt:
Public Opinion
To some, public opinion is the synthesis of the views of all or a certain slice of society, to others, the balance and dispersion of opinion. Some have insisted the power of public opinion is essential to its understanding. The power of public opinion was acknowledged early on, and benevolent monarchs and despots alike feared the mob’s revolt.
Historical background
Ancient times Although the term public opinion was not used until the 18th century, phenomena that closely resembled public opinion seem to have occurred in many historical epochs... See full speech (pdf)
15th century:
Ancient Constitution of England on Common Law
ABSTRACT
Robert Bellarmine was one of the pillars of post-Reformation Catholicism: he was a celebrated Jesuit theologian, a highly ranked member of the Congregations of the Inquisition and of the Index, the censor in charge of the Galileo affair. Bellarmine was also one of the most original political theorists of his time, and he participated directly in many of the political conflicts that agitated Europe between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century. This book offers the first full-length study of the impact of Bellarmine’s theory of the potestas indirecta in early modern Europe. Following the reactions to Bellarmine’s theory across national and confessional boundaries, this book explores some of the most crucial political and theological knots in the history of post-Reformation Europe, from the controversy over the Oath of Allegiance to the battle over the Interdetto in Venice. The book sets those political and religious controversies against the background of the theological and institutional developments of the post-Tridentine Catholic Church. By examining the violent and at times surprising controversies originated by Bellarmine’s theory, this book challenges some of the traditional assumptions regarding the theological shape of post-Tridentine Catholicism; it offers a fresh perspective on the centrality of the links between confessional affiliation and political allegiance in the formation of the modern nation-states; and it contributes to our understanding of the development of “modern” notions of power and authority.
The English "Inclosure Acts"spanning 1604 and 1914, were a series of Acts of Parliament that empowered enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land that was previously held in common.
- Removal of common rights that people held over farm lands and parish commons.
- Reallocation of scattered strips of land into large new fields that were enclosed either by hedges, walls or fences.
- Newly created enclosed fields were reserved for the sole use of individual owners or their tenants.
Excerpt:
Enclosure transformed the old open fields and common lands of England to create the modern rural landscape. It changed forever the life of many villages, but provided food for a rapidly rising population. Its methods and consequences were controversial - many rural poor lost their access to land - and the subject is still a cause of dispute. Gordon Mingay's authoritative survey guides the reader through the complexities of the topic. He describes the processes by which land was reorganised and analyses the impact of enclosure regionally. Throughout he stresses the extent of local variation which make the subject so complex. >>>more
Excerpt:
Over the course of a few hundred years, much of Britain's land has been privatized — that is to say taken out of some form of collective ownership and management and handed over to individuals. . . . The standard interpretation of enclosure, at least 18th-19th century enclosure, is that it was "a necessary evil, and there would have been less harm in it if the increased dividend of the agricultural world had been fairly distributed."
>>> more
Religious persecution and political upheaval Gerrard Winstanley (1609-1676) founded the True Levellers in 1649 - known as "Diggers" when they began to dig up public lands to plant crops. Inspired by a passage in the Book of Acts, the Diggers attempted reform by "levelling" 'real property' to launch an Agrarianism based on founding small egalitarian rural cooperative communities.
The years 1649-1650 witnessed the emergence of two prominent radical sects of the British Civil Wars – the Diggers and the Ranters. . . the way the Diggers and the Ranters were labelled and what these labels tell us about those who supposedly voiced dissenting opinions as well as about perceptions of the heterodox landscape of the late 1640s and early 1650s. It also studies the basis on which newsbook writers generally condemned, rather than condoned, the alleged heretical views of the Diggers and the Ranters, and what this reveals about the religious positioning of these essential contributors to the print culture of the Civil War years.
Seventeenth-century newspapers were popular forms of writing. Even if only educated guesses can be made as to their print-run, their sheer number throughout the 1640s – less so in the 1650s due to closer government scrutiny – clearly testifies to their popularity. . . >>>more
"The Great Rebellion" was a period of 'civil war' encompassing the Irish Rebellion and Confederate Wars in Ireland between 1641 and 1653 (including the Cromwellian invasion); the Bishops’ Wars between England and Scotland in 1639 and 1640; as well as three separate wars (1642-6, 1648-49, and 1650-51) across England, Scotland, and Wales: Levellers, Ranters, Seekers, Diggers - in pursuit of religious freedom, led to King Charles I's conviction of treason and execution on 30 January 1649, and the "Puritan Commonwealth", 1649-1660, emerged, led by Puritan statesman Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) in the interm role of "Lord Protector", championed by "New Model Army" officers promoted according to capacity rather than class.
Cromwellian Protectorate, 1649 to 1660
Back to top
The Cromwellian Protectorate collapsed in 1660, when the Stuart monarchy was restored.
Following the death of King Charles I, Crown lands came under the control of Parliament until Charles II’s restoration in 1660.
The founding of the Protectorate (The Cromwell Association)
Excerpt:
1653 saw the establishment of the Protectorate. The new form of government founded on 16 December proved to be the most durable and stable regime of the entire republican or commonwealth period (1649-60). At home, it provided stability and orderly civilian rule, restored many of the traditional forms and, with its peaceable and inclusive approach, began the process of healing the divisions of the war years; . . . It was also the first (and, to date, only) government in this country to be established and to operate under the terms of a detailed written constitution, which set out the composition and powers of the government. The constitution established an assured succession of elected, single-chamber parliaments, exercising extensive though not unlimited legislative powers, and set up a permanent, largely independent council, exercising extensive though not unlimited executive powers. It provided for a large and potent army and navy and guaranteed extensive religious liberty for most Protestant faiths.
The constitution also appointed a single head of state, who was to act with, and to coordinate the work of, both parliament and council, but who was to exercise only very limited powers alone and in his own right. The head of state was to be called a Lord Protector, not a king, and hence the regime as a whole became known as the Protectorate. The constitution appointed Oliver Cromwell as head of state for life, and he remained Protector until his death in September 1658. Although the office was not hereditary, he was in fact succeeded by his elder surviving son, Richard Cromwell, who served as Protector for around eight months, until an army coup in spring 1659 led to his ejection and to the collapse of the Protectorate as a whole. Roughly a year later, in spring 1660, the Stuart monarchy was restored. >>> more
Part 3
Voltaire's History of the Quakers Back to top
“It was in the reign of Charles II that they obtained the noble distinction of being exempted from giving their testimony on oath in a court of justice, and being believed on their bare affirmation.” says Voltaire
“Being of opinion that the doctrine and history of so extraordinary a sect as the Quakers were very well deserving the curiosity of every thinking man, I resolved to make myself acquainted with them.” – Voltaire (1762)
See excerpts in Part 1:2 "The History of the Quakers" in The Works of Voltaire (1762), Vol 13, as translated by Tobias George Smollett, Thomas Francklin, et al., Later published as "The Religion of the Quakers", in The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version with Notes (1901), Vol. 39, as modernized by William F. Fleming
"The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for "theeing" and "thouing" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws. ... The crown invested William Penn “with the right and sovereignty of a province of America, to the south of Maryland. Thus was a Quaker raised to sovereign power.
He set sail for his new dominions with two ships filled with Quakers, who followed his fortune. The country was then named by them Pennsylvania, from William Penn; and he founded Philadelphia, which is now a very flourishing city.His first care was to make an alliance with his American neighbors; and this is the only treaty between those people and the Christians that was not ratified by an oath, and that was never infringed.” >>>more
How the "Quaker Terror" led to fulfillment of "The American Dream". Back to top
Quakers in Kent: An Extremely Brief History of Quakers
What is now known as Quakerism first emerged during the social and political turmoil of the English Civil War during the middle years of the seventeenth century.
It had its roots several decades earlier, among the Seekers. Seekers shunned creeds, and were often considered heretical. Their meetings did not involve clergy, silence replaced liturgy, and attention was given to direct inspiration and religious experience. The organisation was informal, and respected other Christian denominations, other religions and atheism. Seekers were local to parts of northern England, and were from a specific stratum of society. Quakers drew from every stratum of society and quickly spread throughout England, the British Isles and beyond. Some Seekers later became Quakers. >>>more
Excerpt: An understanding of the English Revolution is crucial ... formed in the crucible of "Oliver's Days." The mixture of politics, religion, economics, and military experience suffused the thinking of all who had come of age in the twenty years prior to 1660. . .
In England, the 1649 beheading of King Charles I demystified power and brought in its wake a great deal more questioning of the legitimacy of political authorities. ‘‘Oliver’s Days,’’ Cromwell’s republican regime, touched all those who lived through the period. The Roundheads removed heavy-handed church censorship, releasing a dizzying array of religious and political ideas. If a king could be questioned and found treacherous, then no legitimacy stemmed merely from custom and reverence.
If a divine-right king could be decapitated, if the House of Lords could be dissolved, if the Anglican Church lost its position as the sole interpreter of God’s word, then all authority lay open to reason. Even the pulpits no longer carried their traditional moral authority. The ‘‘Restoration’’ of another Charles, obviously the decision of the new head of the army, only reinforced the idea that power truly lay in the control of force, not in the mystic anointment of a man in a majestic coronation ritual. No one owed any ‘‘natural’’ deference because of bloodlines and social rank. As English people emigrated to the American mainland, these revolutionary ideas traveled, too. – Noeleen McIlveena, 2009
(See more excerpts HERE).
The Bill firmly established the principles of frequent parliaments, free elections and freedom of speech within Parliament – known today as Parliamentary Privilege. It also includes no right of taxation without Parliament's agreement, freedom from government interference, the right of petition and just treatment of people by courts...>>>more
"There was no ancient political or legal precedent for the right to arms. The Ancient Constitutiondid not include it; it was neither in Magna Charta 1215 nor in the Petition of Right, 1628. No early English government would have considered giving the individual such a right." – Schwoerer, 2000, p. 34
". . . was a victory for a specific class of well connected nobles, but we spin a yarn about them being somehow representative of the struggle for freedoms for all ruddy-cheeked Englishmen. If we know a little bit more about it, we probably understand that it was something to do with property as well – that the king-government couldn’t arbitrarily seize property without due process and so on." >>> more
Jock Coats recommends the work of Andro Linklater (1944-2013), author of Measuring America: How the United States Was Shaped by the Greatest Land Sale in History, 2002, available on Internet Archive HERE.
1st edition 2013 summary:
Spreading from both shores of the north Atlantic, it laid waste to traditional communal civilizations, displacing entire peoples from their homelands, but at the same time brought into being a unique concept of individual freedom and a distinct form of representative government and democratic institutions. By contrast, as Linklater demonstrates, other great civilizations, in Russia, China, and the Islamic world, evolved very different structures of land ownership and thus very different forms of government and social responsibility.
The history and evolution of landownership is a fascinating chronicle in the history of civilization, offering unexpected insights about how various forms of democracy and capitalism developed, as well as a revealing analysis of a future where the Earth must sustain nine billion lives. Seen through the eyes of remarkable individuals-Chinese emperors; German peasants; the seventeenth century English surveyor William Petty, who first saw the connection between private property and free-market capitalism; the American radical Wolf Ladejinsky, whose land redistribution in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea after WWII made possible the emergence of Asian tiger economies-Owning the Earth presents a radically new view of mankind's place on the planet.
2nd Edition 2014 summary
Barely two centuries ago, most of the world's productive land still belonged either communally to traditional societies or to the higher powers of monarch or church. But that pattern, and the ways of life that went with it, were consigned to history as a result of the most creative – and, at the same time, destructive – cultural force in the modern era: the idea of individual, exclusive ownership of land.
This notion laid waste to traditional communal civilisations, displacing entire peoples from their homelands, and brought into being a unique concept of individual freedom and a distinct form of representative government and democratic institutions. Other great civilizations, in Russia, China, and the Islamic world, evolved very different structures of land ownership, and thus very different forms of government and social responsibility.
The seventeenth-century English surveyor William Petty was the first man to recognise the connection between private property and free-market capitalism; the American radical Wolf Ladejinsky redistributed land in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea after the Second World War to make possible the emergence of Asian tiger economies. Through the eyes of these remarkable individuals and many more, including Chinese emperors and German peasants, Andro Linklater here presents the evolution of land ownership to offer a radically new view of mankind's place on the planet.
English Land Law timeline
• 664AD
The Synod of Whitby led to the liturgical and administrative unification of the Roman Catholic Church in England. Delegates from the North and the South came together to debate whether the Celtic or the Roman customs were to be followed. A decision was made to follow the Roman liturgical customs introduced by Augustine of Canterbury in place of the Celtic practices that were formerly followed. The Venerable Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People describes the proceedings in detail about seventy years after the events.>>> more
• 1100
The Charter of Liberties aka The Coronation Charter, was a written proclamation by Henry I of England, issued upon his accession to the throne in 1100.
It sought to bind the King to certain laws regarding the treatment of church officials and nobles. It is considered a landmark document in English legal history and a forerunner of Magna Carta.>>> more, and pdf
• 1122
The Concordat of Worms aka Pactum Calixtinum by papal historians, was an agreement between Pope Calixtus II (1119–24) and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V (reigned 1106–25) on September 23, 1122 near the city of Worms. It brought to an end the first phase of the power struggle between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperors and has been interpreted as containing within itself the germ of nation-based sovereignty that would one day be confirmed in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648); in part this was an unforeseen result of strategic maneuvering between the Church and the European sovereigns over political control within their domains.>>> more
• 1215
Magna Carta aka Magna Carta Libertatum or The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, was the first document forced onto a King of England by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. The charter was an important part of the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law in the English speaking world.
See: Magna Carta: a precedent for recent constitutional change.
• 1217
The Great Charter (Latin: Magna Carta) Key Facts & Summary – The Great Charter, drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and sealed on June 15, 1215, by King John of England, "under threat of civil war and reissued, with alterations, in 1216, 1217, and 1225" constitutes a contract for the recognition of reciprocal rights and "Due Process" as the basis of common law throughout the world. The Charter of Liberties
and The Charter of the Forests were complementary charters to the Magna Carta, providing rights, privileges and protections for the common man against the abuses of the encroaching aristocracy.>>> more See Peter Linebaugh 800th anniversary tribute on "the rights of the common man".
• 1235/6 Statute of Merton
This statute is the forerunner of our parliamentary legal system – the first entry in the Statute Book – consisting of eleven chapters.
The term "Statute of Merton" is usually reserved for ch. 4 due to its role in forming
The Commons Act 1236. This statute allowed a Lord of the Manor to enclose common land (provided that sufficient pasture remained for his tenants), and set out when and how manorial lords could assert rights over waste land, woods, and pastures against their tenants. It quickly became a basis for English common law, developing and clarifying legal concepts of ownership, and was one of the English statutes carried over into the law of the Lordship of Ireland. Read the history–well told(pdf)
• 1279 and 1290
Statutes of Mortmain Two enactments by King Edward I aimed at preserving the kingdom's revenues by preventing land from passing into the possession of the Church—to re-establish the prohibition against donation of land to the Church, which was originally proscribed by the Magna Carta aka Great Charter of 1217. Magnates were asked by what warrant they claimed rights of jurisdiction and other franchises. By the Statute of Mortmain of 1279 it was provided that no more land was to be given to the church without royal license. This created much argument, which was resolved in the Statute of Quo Warranto of 1290.>>> more and more
• 1275 and 1285
Statutes of Westminster ...of the commons had been summoned; the other two statutes were promulgated in parliaments attended only by the great lords and councillors. The second statute (1285) has become known as De donis conditionalibus (“concerning conditional gifts”) from its first clause, which sought to restrain alienation of land and preserve entail.>>> more
• 1285
De Donis "Concerning Gifts" Statute of Westminster II. Legislation at the end of the 13th century (statute De donis conditionalibus, 1285) allowed a conveyor of land to limit its inheritance to the direct descendants of the conveyee and to claim it back if the conveyee’s direct line died out. >>> more
• 1290
Quia Emptores forbade subinfeudation, the process whereby one tenant granted land to another who then considered the grantor his lord. Thus, after passage of the Quia Emptores, if A granted land to B in fee simple, B's lord would not be A but A's lord. The statute prevented the growth of the feudal pyramid, and in the course of time most land came to be held from the crown and not from intermediate lords. Quia Emptores was critical to the development of the English law of real property, especially the establishment of the right of free alienation.>>> more and more (This is the law that transferred land ownership from the Irish to the English Crown. The Quia Emptores Act of 1290 AD, is still on the Irish statute book. >>> more)
• 1297
Confirmation of Charters As the most recent version of the Magna Carta, remains in legal force in England and Wales. #4. And that archbishops and bishops shall pronounce sentences of greater excommunication against all those that by word, deed, or counsel shall go against the foresaid charters, or that in any point break or go against them. And that the said curses be twice a year denounced and published by the prelates aforesaid. And if the same prelates or any of them be remiss in the denunciation of the said sentences, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for the time being, as is fitting, shall reprove them and constrain them to make that denunciation in form aforesaid.>>> more
Edward III (1312-1377), King of England and Lord of Ireland for 50 years, from January 1327 until his death in 1377, issued several statutes interpreting The Great Charter’s vital clauses on fair trial:
• 1331 It is enacted, that no man from henceforth shall be attached by any accusation nor fore judged of life or limb, nor his lands, tenements, goods, nor chattels seised into the king’s hands, against the form of the Great Charter, and the law of the land.
• 1351
[Further to the Great Charter] it is accorded that from henceforth none shall be taken by petition or suggestion made to our lord the king, or to his council, unless it be by indictment or presentment of good and lawful people of the same neighbourhood where such deeds be done, in due manner, or by process made by writ original at the common law.
• 1535
Item, that no man of what estate of condition that he be, shall be put out of land or tenement, nor taken nor imprisoned, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without being brought in answer by due process of the law.
• 1535
Statute of Uses An English Law enacted to end the practice of creating uses in real property by changing the purely equitable title of those entitled to a use into absolute ownership with the right of possession. "the statute would work to transfer into common law interests that could not have been created at common law prior to the statute." >>> more
• 1540
Statute of Wills abolished primogeniture and gave landholders the right to devise their property to whomever they pleased in a written will and testament. However, Parliament did not abolish the Statute of Uses. >>> more
• 1550 Statute of Merton was revived to enable lords to enclose their land at their own discretion — out of keeping with the traditional Tudor anti-enclosure attitude.
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• 1604 - 1614
Inclosure Acts A series of Acts of Parliament that empowered enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land that was previously held in common.
• 1605 - 1606 The Popish Recusants Act 1605,
"an Act introduced for better discovery and repression of ‘Popish’ recusants,"
and The Oath of Allegiance of 1606, required English Catholics to swear allegiance to the king, making it high treason to obey the authority of Rome.
• 1642-1660
Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum. June 1657: An Act for convicting, discovering and repressing of Popish Recusants. ". . . shall give in charge unto the Grand Juries, diligently to enquire, and present the names of all such persons, being of the age of sixteen years, as are suspected or reputed to be Papists, or Popishly affected . . .">>> more
• 1688-1689
The Declaration of Rights, 1689: Bill of Rights, formally An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown.
• 1829
Roman Catholic Relief Act Widespread social disruption led to several Acts of Parliament, until British Parliament passed the Roman Catholic Relief Act permitting members of the Catholic Church to sit in the parliament at Westminster for the first time.
• 1832-1884
Chartists movement "The long struggle for representative democracy led to the "Chartist movement" and eventually, in 1918, the right to vote being extended to all men”>>> more
The six main aims of the Chartist movement were:
- a vote for all men (over 21)
- the secret ballot
- no property qualification for MPs
- payment for MPs
- electoral districts of equal size
- annual elections for Parliament
• Chartism: 1838-1858
Who were the Chartists? “probably the most important mass movement in British history": ". . . Chartism took its name from The People’s Charter (1838), a manifesto for reform to complete the work of widening political participation that (it was thought) the 1215 Magna Carta had begun. . .Despite social media and new technology, the twenty-first century has yet to surpass Chartism in the organisation, passion and sheer numbers brought to petitioning." Professor Malcolm Chase (1957-2020: Obituary)
– Chase, (2007), In Chartism: A new history
Google book SCAN:
Reviews:
- Oxford Journal review
- Institute of Historical Research review (review followed by the author’s comprehensive response.)
Rejected: Chartist petitions of 1842 and 1848. "Although it was widely expected that massive unrest would follow the rejection of the petition, this did not in fact occur." UK Parliament
Abstract
WHO were the Chartists? The Chartists’ own view was stated by Thomas Duncombe, introducing the 1842 Petition: ‘those who were originally called radicals and afterwards reformers, are called Chartists’.1 But this was never accepted by the great bulk of contemporary opinion. From the moment that Chartism first emerged as a public movement, what seized the imagination of contemporaries were not the formally radical aims and rhetoric of its spokesmen, but the novel and threatening social character of the movement. A nation-wide independent movement of the ‘working classes’ brandishing pikes in torchlight meetings in pursuit of its ‘rights’ was an unprecedented event, and whatever Chartism’s official self-identity, contemporary observers could not refrain from projecting onto it deeper unavowed motives and sentiments. Thomas Carlyle’s distinction between the ‘distracted incoherent embodiment of Chartism’ and its ‘living essence’… ‘the bitter discontent grown fierce and mad, the wrong condition therefore or the wrong disposition, of the Working Classes of England’, with its implied gulf between the real and formal definition of Chartism, set the terms of the predominant response, whatever the precise definition given to these terms.2 Chartists in vain protested their respect for property.3 Macaulay, debating the 1842 Petition, deduced the Chartist position on property from the social composition of its constituency.
• 1909/10 The 1909/1910 People's Budget was a proposal of the Liberal government that introduced unprecedented taxes on the lands and incomes of Britain's wealthy to fund new social welfare programmes. It passed the House of Commons in 1909 but was blocked by the House of Lords for a year and became law in April 1910. The People's Budget
Excerpt:
Lloyd George, who was the first Chancellor of the Exchequer who had not been to a private school, was considered to be a "man of the people". in one speech had warned that if the Liberal Party did not pass radical legislation, at the next election, the working-class would vote for the Labour Party: "If at the end of our term of office it were found that the present Parliament had done nothing to cope seriously with the social condition of the people, to remove the national degradation of slums and widespread poverty and destitution in a land glittering with wealth, if they do not provide an honourable sustenance for deserving old age, if they tamely allow the House of Lords to extract all virtue out of their bills, so that when the Liberal statute book is produced it is simply a bundle of sapless legislative faggots fit only for the fire - then a new cry will arise for a land with a new party, and many of us will join in that cry." >>>more
