The Magna Carta myth

Welcome to the History Extra podcast. Today we've got the second episode of our Sunday series on Magna Carta, a document whose real contents, it turns out, may differ somewhat from those of today's popular imagination. Magna Carta may be associated today with power, liberty and freedom, but these weren't quite the concerns on the cards back in twelve fifteen. So what did the barons really demand of King John? What can this document tell us about the lives of those living in medieval England, and was it really all that unique?

I'm Emily Griffith and I'm joined today by Professor Nicholas Vincent for this second episode on this significant charter. Together we'll be delving into the archive to uncover the real Magna Carta, clause by clause, and exploring why it's not quite the Liberty Manifesto of legends. Welcome back to the podcast, Nicholas. Thank you very much. So today we're really going to be getting to grips with the documents sealed in 1215.

First off, we're talking about Runnymede. What location are we actually talking about? Can we actually pinpoint an exact location if people wanted to visit? Well, you you can gather from the name Runnymede that it's a meadow and it sits on the Thames at the bottom of Cooper's Hill, between Staines and Windsor. and Stane seems to be where the barons hung out, and Windsor was where the king was, and we have to imagine that meadow really under canvas, with an awful lot of tents and pavilions there in June, nice time of the year, June 1215.

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