Magna Carta was the 1215 English charter that limited royal power and required King John to recognize certain rights.
King John sealed the charter at Runnymede on 15 June 1215 after rebellious barons challenged his rule. The immediate dispute concerned taxation, military failures, feudal customs, and the king’s use of justice. The charter was a negotiated settlement rather than a modern democratic constitution.
Many of its clauses dealt with specific medieval concerns, including debts, inheritance, forests, and the rights of the Church and barons. Clause 39 promised that no free man would be imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, or harmed except by lawful judgment or the law of the land.
Pope Innocent III annulled the original charter later in 1215, and civil war followed. Revised versions were issued under Henry III in 1216, 1217, and 1225. Only three clauses remain part of English law today, but Magna Carta became a powerful symbol of the principle that rulers are subject to law.