This attractive, lavishly illustrated book is a fascinating addition to the plethora of academic works published to celebrate Magna Carta’s 800th anniversary. It begins with an excellent introduction by Nicholas Vincent, also the author of five of the ten subsequent chapters: ‘Law before Magna Carta’, ‘Plantagenet tyranny and lawmaking’, ‘The tyranny of King John’ and ‘Magna Carta: defeat into victory’, which covers 1215 and the remainder of the thirteenth century. He returns in Chapter Ten, ‘From World War to World Heritage’, examining the Charter’s dissemination, reception and reputation through the twentieth century.

The book’s glossy appearance and its c 250 mainly colour illustrations give it a deceptively ‘coffee table’ appearance. It is anything but. Vincent is joined by several experts in their fields: Anthony Musson, who takes over from him with ‘Magna Carta in the later Middle Ages’ (Chapter Six); Justin Champion, who covers the period 1508–1760s (Chapter Seven); Joyce Lee Malcolm, who delivers ‘Magna Carta in America: entrenched’ (Chapter Eight); Miles Taylor, who explores ‘Magna Carta in the 19th century’ (Chapter Nine), and Richard Goldstone, who charts developments in the twenty-first century (Chapter Eleven). Indicative of the work’s quality is that all are professors but one, Goldstone, who is Honorary President of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute and has led UN International Criminal Tribunals. He comes bang up to date by outlining the ominous implications of the ‘War on Terrorism’ for the principles which have become enshrined in the Charter over the centuries; an apotheosis which is expertly demonstrated in the preceding chapters.

The ‘afterlife’ of the Charter is of course well-trodden ground, but much is unique about its treatment here. Indeed the book departs from conventional Magna Carta historiography from the outset in that alone of all the celebratory publications (except Derek Taylor’s Magna Carta in 20 Places (Taylor Reference Taylor2015), which covers the Constitutions and Assize of Clarendon) it places the Charter firmly in the context of earlier, as well as later, legislation. In the first two chapters Vincent moves through Tacitus, ‘barbarian law’, Anglo-Saxon law codes, Henry i’s Coronation Charter (1100), the Leges Edwardi Confessoris (c 1140), the Constitutions and Assize of Clarendon (1164, 1166), and even Gratian’s Decretum (c 1140) and John of Salisbury’s Polycraticus (c 1159), demonstrating how each played a part in Magna Carta’s genesis.

Musson’s chapter on the late thirteenth to the fifteenth century is equally innovative. It begins conventionally, with Magna Carta’s metamorphosis into the pre-eminent statute of the realm from the reign of Edward i. Yet Musson also demonstrates that even at this early stage its contents were often misunderstood, before spending seven pages (pp 95–101) analysing illuminations and marginal figures in order to examine contemporary perceptions. Here, among other marginalia, are a marginal Edward i pointing to text ordering the barons of the Exchequer to observe the Charter’s clauses, Magna Carta being handed to a mid-fourteenth-century king during the coronation oath, symbolising his duty to uphold the realm’s laws and customs, and an early fourteenth-century figure baring his behind beneath the text of the Charter itself. Musson suggests that this may allude to The Dialogue of Solomon and Marcolf, popular c 1410–1550, in which Solomon’s wisdom is pitted against that of a foolish yet cunning peasant. However, he concedes that it is possibly ‘a comical … vignette, in which … the constitutional importance of Magna Carta [is] mocked profanely’ (p 100) – not the kind of thing we normally encounter in the Charter’s still often resolutely Whiggish historiography!

The wide range of approaches and the long chronological span encompassed mean there is something for everyone here, not just historians of thirteenth-century England or of the North American revolutionary era. There is insufficient space in this review to list all the highlights, but a few examples stand out. Justin Champion shows how the Charter was used in the seventeenth century not only to demonstrate the longevity and origins of an independent parliament but also to defend the royalist cause after the Restoration, and Miles Taylor uses the commemorative art, events and material culture of the nineteenth century to explore contemporary attitudes. He notes that, although the Charter had risen to mythical status, commentators were ‘surprisingly ignorant or at best lacking in curiosity’ (p 141) in its historical context before Stubbs and Maitland’s contributions in the 1870s and 1880s, leading to depictions of John signing (of course!) Magna Carta ‘under a tree … in an open field … in a tent … and by a tent under a tree’ (p 141). All these images are reproduced – and so, earlier on, are lavish full-page photographs of the four extant original charters.

Taylor took on quite a job since he also covers ‘Magna Carta across the British empire’ (pp 150–3). A similarly international slant of course appears in the final two modern chapters, with Vincent outlining the largely American engineering of the commemorative landscape at Runnymede and the politicking behind the gifting of various individual charters to lands of which King John could never have dreamed. Finally, Goldstone outlines Magna Carta’s influence on the global community. Even in the introduction Vincent shows that the Charter was ‘widely broadcast beyond the English realm’ (p 13), including the extension of its privileges to Ireland in 1217 and its part in the French constitutional struggles of the early fourteenth century. This emphasis is fitting because this work results from a major international project, bringing together leading institutions with an interest in Magna Carta. Accordingly, it has been published in several editions, including one for the Law Society and Bar Council, another for the International Bar Association and another for friends and supporters of Lincoln Cathedral, the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, and members of the Baronial Order of Magna Charta.

In short, this is a superb elucidation of Magna Carta’s background, as well as its context and posterity. If I were forced to choose just one of the fifteen or so commemorative publications this would probably be it, not least due to its attention to art, literature and material culture alongside more ‘traditional’ sources. At the same time enough detailed historical and political context is given to satisfy any historian, although they might be startled by the lack of footnotes or endnotes. Yet lists of further reading are given for each chapter and the text of the Charter in the appendices, with its useful accompanying glossary, will prove invaluable for students and interested members of the public, as will the book as a whole.