Читать книгу Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John. With an Historical Introduction онлайн
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ssss1. Pollock and Maitland, I. 150, emphasize this disparity. “In form a donation, a grant of franchises freely made by the king, in reality a treaty extorted from him by the confederate estates of the realm, ... it is also a long and miscellaneous code of laws.” Cf. also Ibid., I. 658.
III. Magna Carta: its Contents and Characteristics.
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The confirmation of the rights enumerated in the sixty-three chapters of the Charter represented the price paid by John for the renewed allegiance of the rebels. These rights are fully discussed, one by one, in the second part of the present volume: a brief description of their more prominent characteristics, when viewed as a collective whole, is, therefore, all that is here required.
In the attempt to analyze the leading provisions, various principles of classification have been adopted. Three of these stand out prominently: the various chapters may be arranged according to the functions of the central government which they were intended to limit; according to their own nature as progressive, reactionary, or merely declaratory; and, finally, according to the classes of the community which reaped the greatest benefit.