DOCUMENT

"Confirmatio Chartarum" of Edward I. (1297)

487.

I. Edward, by the grace of God, King of Eng- The Statutes land, Lord of Ireland, and Duke Guyan, to all those of the Realm, i. 123, 124, that these present letters shall hear or see, greeting. translated Know ye that we to the honour of God and of holy by William Stubbs, Church, and to the profit of our realm, have granted Select Charfor us and our heirs, that the Charter of Liberties ters, 486, and the Charter of the Forest, which were made by common assent of all the realm, in the time of King Henry our father, shall be kept in every point without breach. And we will that the same charters shall be sent under our seal as well to our justices of The gist of the forest as to others, and to all sheriffs of shires, Magna Charta and and to all our other officers, and to all our cities of the Charthroughout the realm, together with our writs in the ter of the which it shall be contained, that they cause the pears in this foresaid charters to be published, and to declare to article; by the people that we have confirmed them in all points, the prerogaand that our justices, sheriffs, mayors, and other tive of levyministers which under us have the laws of our land ing internal to guide, shall allow the said charters pleaded before given up. them in judgment in all their points; that is to wit, the Great Charter as the common law, and the Charter of the Forest according to the Assize of the Forest, for the wealth of our realm.

Forest ap

this statute

taxes was

II. And we will that if any judgment be given from henceforth, contrary to the points of the charters aforesaid, by the justices or by any other our The remedy ministers that hold plea before them against the points of the charters, it shall be undone and holden

for nought.

III. And we will that the same charters shall be sent under our seal to cathedral churches throughout our realm, there to remain, and shall be read before the people two times by the year.

against arbitrary judgment lay in the law of Art. ii.

Arts. iii. and iv. limit the

IV. And that all archbishops and bishops shall authority of pronounce the sentence of great excommunication the Church.

against all those that by word, deed, or counsel do contrary to the foresaid charters, or that in any point break or undo them. And that the said curses be twice a year denounced and published by the prelates aforesaid. And if the 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 compel and distrein them to make that denunciation in form aforesaid.

V. And for so much as divers people of our realm are in fear that the aids and tasks which they have given to us beforetime towards our wars and other business, of their own grant and goodwill, howsoever they were made, might turn to a bondage to them and their heirs, because they might be at another time found in the rolls, and so likewise the prises taken throughout the realm by our ministers; we have granted for us and our heirs, that we shall not draw such aids, tasks, nor prises into a custom, for anything that hath been done heretofore, or that the principle, may be found by roll or in any other manner.

Articles v., vi., and vii. contain the essence of

"No taxa

tion without representation."

VI. Moreover we have granted for us and our heirs, as well to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of holy Church, as also to earls, barons, and to all the commonalty of the land, that for no business from henceforth will we take such manner of aids, tasks, nor prises, but by the common consent of the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed.

VII. And for so much as the more part of the commonalty of the realm find themselves sore grieved with the maletote of wools, that is to wit, a toll of forty shillings for every sack of wool, and have made petition to us to release the same; we, at their reBeginning of quests, have clearly released it, and have granted. a system by for us and our heirs that we shall not take such thing nor any other without their common assent and good

which taxes in foreign

will; saving to us and our heirs the custom of wools, trade were skins, and leather granted before by the commonalty to Parlia made subject aforesaid. In witness of which things we have ment. caused these our letters to be made patents. Witness Edward our son at London, the 10th day of October, the five and twentieth year of our reign.

And be it remembered that this same charter, in the same terms, word for word, was sealed in Flanders under the king's great seal, that is to say, at Ghent, the 5th day of November in the 25th year of the reign of our aforesaid lord the king, and sent into England.

CONTEMPORARY EXPOSITION

BARTHOLOMEW DE COTTON (1297)

His majesty the King conceded to all who owed him service and to all holders of twenty measures of land that they should not be held to go with him into Flanders except for the performance of promises and of military service due said King.

BARTHOLOMEW DE COTTON, Historia Anglicana, translated by H. A. Clapp (1900). 327.

CRITICAL COMMENT

HALLAM (1818)

That famous statute, inadequately denominated the confirmation of the charters, because it added another pillar to our Constitution, is not less important than the great charter itself. Hitherto the King's prerogative of levying money. . . . had passed unquestioned. Some impositions, that especially on the export of wool, affected all the King's subjects. It was now the moment to enfranchise the people, and give that security to private property which Magna Charta had given to personal liberty.

HENRY HALLAM, Middle Ages. 354.

MACAULAY (1849)

That the King could not impose taxes without the consent of parliament is admitted to have been, from time immemorial, a fundamental law of England. It was among the articles which John was compelled by the Barons to sign. Edward I. ventured to break through the rule, but able, powerful, and popular as he was, he encountered an opposition to which he found it expedient to yield. He covenanted, accordingly in express terms, for himself and for his heirs, that they would never again levy any aid without the assent and good will of the estates of the realm.

MACAULAY, History of England. I. 25.

STUBBS (1873)

The charters were confirmed by inspeximus on the 12th; the King on the 5th of November at Ghent confirmed both the charters and the new articles. These articles are the summary of the advantages gained at the termination of the struggle of eightytwo years, and in words they amount to very little more than a reinsertion of the clauses omitted from the Great Charter of John. The "Confirmatio Cartarum" is one of the most curious phenomena of our national history, whether it be regarded as the result of an occasional crisis, or as the decision, no longer to be delayed, of a struggle of principles. . . . The forces which seized that opportunity were ready, and were the result of a long series of causes and the working of principles which must sooner or later have made an opportunity for themselves. Such a crisis, if they had separately attempted to bring it about, might have changed the dynasty, or subverted the relations of church and state, crown and parliament, but accepted as it came, it brought about a result singularly in harmony with what seems from history and experience to be the natural direction of English progress.

The

WILLIAM STUBBS, Constitutional History of England. II. 150, 151.

TASWELL-LANGMEAD (1879)

Confirmatio Chartarum," which, although a statute, is drawn up in the form of a charter, was passed on the 10th of

99

October, 1297, in a Parliament at which Knights of the Shire attended as representatives of the Commons, as well as lay and clerical baronage. . . . The "Confirmatio Chartarum was not merely a re-issue of Magna Charta and the Charter of the Forest, but the enactment of a series of new provisions intended to deprive the Crown in the future of its assumed right of arbitrary taxation. . . . The exclusive right of Parliament to impose taxation, though often infringed by the illegal exercise of prerogative, became from this time an axiom of the Constitution.

...

T. P. TASWELL-LANGMEAD, English Constitutional History. 216, 217.

FEILDEN (1882)

The reign of Edward I. is marked by the admission of the Commons to Parliament, and by the partial surrender on the part of the Crown of its claims to arbitrary taxation. In 1297, Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and Archbishop Winchelsey, representing baronial and clerical interests, extorted from Edward the Confirmatio Chartarum.

H. ST. C. FEILDEN, Short Constitutional History of England. 18.

RUDOLF VON GNEIST (1889)

This Confirmatio Chartarum, in French and Latin text, represents, in fact, a fundamental law comparable with Magna Charta, and to the credit of the Crown in contrast with the events of 1215. . . . The main point. . . was that the right constantly contended for since Magna Charta in 1215 of signifying an assent to the taxes, had after a lapse of a century been at last achieved, and this on a broad footing of the landowning classes, which in fact pay them.

RUDOLF VON GNEIST, History of the Eng. Parliament, translated by A. H. Keane. I. 159.

HANNIS TAYLOR (1889)

Not until eighty years after the issuance of the Great Charter did the nation finally win, through the Confirmatio Cartarum, a permanent constitutional guarantee that taxes should never be imposed by the unaided force of the royal authority. .