Читать книгу Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John. With an Historical Introduction онлайн

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The statement that Friday, 19th June, was the day on which peace was finally concluded rests on unmistakable evidence. On 21st June, John wrote from Windsor to William of Cantilupe, one of his captains, instructing him not to enforce payment of any unpaid balances of “tenseries”^[41] demanded since the preceding Friday, “on which day peace was made between the King and his barons.”^[42]

It has been taken for granted by many historians that the peace was finally concluded, and the Great Charter actually sealed and issued on the 15th, not on the 19th.^[43] The fact that all four copies of Magna Carta still extant bear this date seems to have been regarded as absolutely conclusive on this point. Experts in diplomatics, however, have long been aware that elaborate charters and other documents, which occupied a considerable time in preparation, usually bore the date, not of their actual execution, but of the day on which were concluded the transactions of which they form the record. Legal instruments were thus commonly ante-dated (as it would be reckoned according to modern legal practice). Thus it is far from safe to infer from Magna Carta’s mention of its own date that the great seal was actually adhibited on the 15th June.