Statutes of Mortmain - Magna Carta and The Great Charter of 1217

Magna Carta and The Great Charter of 1217

The Magna Carta of 1215 gave little mention of the rights of alienation. It contained 60 chapters, and represented the extreme form of baronial demands. Certain temporary clauses, such as that concerning forests were put into a separate document called the Charter of the Forest. John managed to receive a bull from Pope Innocent III annulling the Magna Carta. Some of its provisions were extreme and unworkable, such as the creation of a commission of twenty-five barons to oversee the King. This was later ejected. Magna Carta was effective law for about nine weeks. King John of England died shortly after that in 1216. The council which ruled in the name of the infant Henry III of England re-issued the charter in 1216, this time with papal assent. It was very much modified in favor of the Crown. The third Great Charter in 1217 is the first document of a legislative kind that expressly mentioned any restraint of alienation in favor of the lord. It says: “No free man shall henceforth give or sell so much of his land as that out of the residue he may not sufficiently do to the lord of the fee the service which pertains to that fee.”

It was determined during the minority rule of Henry III that the Crown should not be limited, hence the compromises seen in the Charters of 1216 and 1217. In 1225, Henry III came of age, and a fourth Great Charter was issued, which varied only slightly from the third Charter. The charter deals with Land Law in Chapters 7,32 and 36. The rights of widows were protected and landowners were forbidden to alienate so much of their land that the lord of the fee suffered detriment. Collusive gifts to the Church (which were frequently made in order to evade feudal service) were forbidden. Coke interprets this as though its only effect was to make the excessive gift voidable by the donor’s heir. It certainly could not be voided by the donor’s lord. This opinion was reiterated by Bracton.