The Magna Carta is the 1215 English charter associated with limiting the power of the monarch.
King John sealed the document at Runnymede on 15 June 1215 after a rebellion by English barons. The charter addressed immediate disputes about feudal payments, justice, and royal authority. Although many of its original clauses concerned medieval governance and were soon annulled or revised, its broader idea—that the ruler was subject to law—became historically influential.
The Magna Carta did not create modern democracy, universal equality, or a complete system of individual rights. Most people in medieval England gained little direct protection from it, and the original version was not a lasting settlement. Later generations, especially English constitutional thinkers and American revolutionaries, interpreted selected clauses as foundations for due process and limits on government. The best-known surviving principle is linked to the promise that no free person would be imprisoned or deprived of rights except through lawful judgment or the law of the land. Four original 1215 copies survive.