When first asked to review this book, my immediate response was one of skepticism: surely there cannot be anything more to say about the Magna Carta? The baronial revolt and the great charter of 1215 that it produced have long been a regular, even frequent, subject of scholarly debate. A simple search for “magna carta” in the Bibliography of British and Irish History, producing an impressive 194 results, seemingly justified my knee-jerk reaction. And then I read Magna Carta and the England of King John. Springing from a 2008 conference at Pennsylvania State University, Janet Loengard has amassed an extraordinary array of contributors for a collection that is bound to become the definitive work on the Magna Carta. While the Magna Carta has more frequently been the subject of political and constitutional history, this articulate and engaging book delves also into economic, social, and legal histories to gain a greater appreciation for the period that produced the Magna Carta and its ever-intriguing actors.

The first few chapters tackle the notoriously dysfunctional Angevin family. In his usual candid and spirited style, Ralph Turner begins the volume with a startling collective portrait of the Angevin personality through an analysis of Henry II, Richard, and John. Agreeing heartily with J. E. A. Jolliffe’s 1963 assessment of Angevin political thought as one of “unrealized absolutism” (25), Turner concludes that the unbridled anger and impulsive cruelty of the Angevin men, resulting in a distinct failure to win their subjects’ loyalty, were not the only factors leading to the creation of a turbulent, emotionally taxing political climate. Unlike their heroically spawned and pious French counterparts, the Angevins neglected to formulate an ideology of kingship that would serve to unify their diverse empire. Turner’s chapter segues skillfully into John Gillingham’s deconstruction of the image of King John. Working on the premise that contemporary chronicles, commonly penned by clergymen, presented a biased image of John simply because of the Angevin family’s ghastly relationship with the church, Gillingham turns to the Histoire des ducs of the Anonymous of Béthune, who may also have been a cleric, but “the values he espoused appear to have been more secular than ecclesiastic” (30). This underappreciated history confirms that even those with secular values had a dreadful opinion of John, describing him as “a very bad man, more cruel than all others”; a womanizer who mocked his vassals; a pathological liar; a manipulator; and full of evil and wallowing in hatred (37–38). What is most interesting is that the Anonymous nevertheless had a poor opinion of the Magna Carta, calling it a “wretched document” (42) and expressing outrage at the bold and unprecedented grab for power exhibited by the baronial council. David Crouch’s exploration of baronial paranoia reveals the difficulties of living on “the edge of the volcano that was King John’s temperament” (53). Despite John’s suspicious and inhumane treatment of his vassals, Crouch explains that they were “by no means predisposed to rebel”; in fact, it is appalling just how much they put up with before rising up against him (62).

David Crook’s chapter transitions us from the personal and political to the legal, casting the final blow to the representation of John as Henry II’s dim-witted boy in “Lion in Winter.” His chapter focuses on the origins of the forest eyres and their heightened regularity under King John. While historians have always seen the creation of these courts as an oppressive measure intended to boost royal revenue, Crook reveals just how profitable they actually were. The forest eyre of 1212 led to £5,504 in penalties—an astounding 11.4 percent of the royal income. The next four chapters also center on England’s legal environment, but from disparate perspectives. James Brundage traces the process of what he calls “juridification” (96), the dissemination of lawyers throughout English society, a process that had a dramatic impact on not only the English church but also the Magna Carta, as one of its drafters demonstrated a distinct familiarity with the ius commune. Picking up where Brundage left off, John Hudson reprises the subject of the impact of the ius commune on the Magna Carta. Hoping to rescue the Englishness of the Magna Carta, Hudson identifies a variety of other factors that may also have affected its writing, concluding that direct influence of the ius commune, in fact, may be limited to only a few clauses. In the one article that has really little to do with the great charter, Barbara Hanawalt addresses the process of trying accused criminals before 1215. Hanawalt puts forward a contention that is not new but impeccably argued, observing that litigants used the courts not to secure a conviction but to force their opponent into the open and attempt to achieve an out-of-court settlement. Returning to the Magna Carta, Janet Loengard examines dower litigation directly before and after 1215, in order to establish the extent of the charter’s impact on the wealth and marital freedom of widows. While she observes that the Magna Carta had no immediate effect, it did encourage “a climate favourable to dower” (149) that lasted much of the century.

The last two chapters stand alone. James Masschaele gives a detailed rebuttal to debates over the state of the English economy in the thirteenth century, establishing that the era is characterized best by economic growth and economic reorientation driven by a “vibrant commercial sector” (164). David Crouch’s last chapter is actually a Latin transcription followed by an English translation of King John’s sanctimonious rationalization of the grounds for his complaint against William de Briouze, a scandalous and well-known affair that reappears intermittently throughout the book. This masterful work represents scholarship at its best and is a true pleasure to read.