Horse 3488 - Magna Carta - The BIG Delusion VIII

30

All merchants, unless they have been previously and publicly forbidden, are to have safe and secure conduct in leaving and coming to England and in staying and going through England both by land and by water to buy and to sell, without any evil exactions, according to the ancient and right customs, save in time of war, and if they should be from a land at war against us and be found in our land at the beginning of the war, they are to be attached without damage to their bodies or goods until it is established by us or our chief justiciar in what way the merchants of our land are treated who at such a time are found in the land that is at war with us, and if our merchants are safe there, the other merchants are to be safe in our land.

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The current wave of not quite explicitly racist, extremely xenophobic, anti-immigration crowd, would have a fit if they knew about this. Clause 30 demands not only free trade but free passage; in an age when passport control is non-existent. Furthermore, it tries to establish not only free movement but explicit protection for foreign merchants in England.

The backdrop of this is that the peasantry, the serfs, and the slaves, likely never travelled more than tens of miles from their villages and hamlets, in their entire lifetimes. The ancient tales of someone leaving everything to seek their fortune in the big cities, to become an apprentice or a burgher of some kind, are notable; precisely because they are the very very rare exception. Most people if they did become an apprentice in a useful trade, either did so because they inherited the family business or because they worked in someone else's business within the parish.

31

If anyone dies holding of any escheat such as the honour of Wallingford, Boulogne, Nottingham, Lancaster or of other escheats which are in our hands and which are baronies, his heir is not to give any other relief or render any other service to us that would not have been rendered to the baron if the barony were still held by a baron, and we shall hold such things in the same way as the baron held them, nor, on account of such a barony or escheat, are we to have the escheat or custody of any of our men unless the man who held the barony or the escheat held elsewhere from us in chief.

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The rules of escheat have very much changed since the thirteenth century. "Escheat" is the legal principle that dormant property, real or monetary, can revert to the ownership of someone else in the absence of a formal line of creditors. Usually the rules of escheat only operate today, in someone dies intestate and their bank accounts are escheated to the Crown.

In the thirteenth century, the barony is mostly concerned about the passing of estates of real property and in some cases the passing of entire hundreds and counties. Holding the Honour of a major city (Wallingford, Boulogne, Nottingham, Lancaster are listed), means the ability to extract taxation and service and fealty from all the knights and by extension all of the serfdom, peasantry and slavery therein.

Clause 31 is trying to limit the ability of the barons, to claim escheat from each other and/or to demand escheat from the heirs of the people who would otherwise be entitled to the property. In the twenty-first century, various Estate and Inheritance Law, leaves literally zero ability for this clause to have any operation in anything at all.

32

No free man is henceforth to give or sell any more of his land to anyone, unless the residue of his land is sufficient to render due service to the lord of the fee as pertains to that fee.

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Oh dear.

I wonder what the cookers and sovcits would have to say when Clause 32 actively prohibits them from selling real estate unless they can demonstrate that they still have the ability to pay taxation. Again, since the subject here is "free men", we are talking about the landed peasantry who own a family farm.

33

All patrons of abbeys which have charters of the kings of England over advowson or ancient tenure or possession are to have the custody of such abbeys when they fall vacant just as they ought to have and as is declared above.

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To place this in time, Magna Carta is about 300 years before Martin Luther nails his list of 95 Points of Rubbish to the door. This is also well before Henry VIII did his rag and decided that the only way that he was going to get a divorce was to start his own church. In 1215, England is still in communion with and is still part of the Catholic Church.

Just to clarify here. An Abbey is a church which keeps and maintains a nunnery. A Cathedral is a church which keeps and maintains a monastery. A Minster is a church which runs and regulates the churches within the county or the hundred. 

When an abbey fell vacant, it was because either the local community could not support the upkeep of the nunnery; most likely due to plague or war which has demanded other service and taxation from the county or the hundred. What Clause 33 prescribes is actually something quite quite dastardly.

The church was not quite separate from the rest of the feudal system. It was not governed by the dukes and barons, and was not called upon to pay either taxation, or service, or fealty. This was fine if the baron or duke in question believed that they owed some kind of tithe to the church, but if they were a self-righteous profit seeking knave, then Clause 33 is a back door to resuming church lands and property.

34

No-one is to be taken or imprisoned on the appeal of woman for the death of anyone save for the death of that woman’s husband.

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You might like to reread this, just to see how evil this is.

Yes you read this correctly. The appeal of a woman is legally invalid in court, save for any other purpose than the inquiry into the death of her husband. In the general scheme of things, we have seen how women have very little rights at law, and Clause 34 doesn't even concede that they have the right to make a complaint in a court as a plaintiff, even if someone horrible was done to them. 

Crimes of theft or impairment of property, are invalid if a woman made the claim. Crimes made against her family, which might include her children being beaten or kidnapped, are invalid if a woman made the claim. Crimes against the person, which includes all battery, and even cases of rape, are invalid if a woman made the claim.

Clause 34 is a horrid piece of legislation. So much of Magna Carta is bad, but this crosses the line into being truly evil.

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Today's running tally of Clauses in Magna Carta which might apply to someone in court in Australia today is:

1/34.

Horse 3487 - You Can Say What You Like About The Dead

 In the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there has been a lot of speculation as to why the shooter did it. Moreover, there has been a push by the authoritarian portion of society, to try and paint Charlie Kirk as some kind of new martyr for their cause. 

In the push to seemingly canonise Charlie Kirk, what has been lost is any kind of honest account of what he said. It is not difficult to find recordings from his podcast in which he was openly racist and repeatedly indecent in his comments. However, journalists and other people in the media who have not toed the line but have had the audacity to telling the truth about his life and about what he said, have lost their jobs for telling the truth.

One of the repeated calls in the weaponsation of this new orthodoxy, is for the Estate of Charlie Kirk to sue people for defamation. Here's the thing that people miss though.

It is literally impossible to defame the dead.

You can tell all kinds of lies about a dead person. You can invent utter fantasies and fabrications. What you can not do, is defame the dead.

Why? Because although defamation is the publication of untrue statements or material that harms a person's reputation, it is the reputational harm which causes ongoing harm, usually by means of monetary value.

Even though a statement might take the form of spoken words, written content, images, or even gestures, and be materially untrue, a dead person can not make any money nor can they suffer a loss of income; not can they actually suffer any reputational harm which is ongoing.

One of the favourite dog whistles among the authoritarian crowd of which Charlie Kirk was a part, is that "facts don't care about your feelings". One of the facts of note when it comes to defamation claims is that dead people can feel no shame or humiliation; nor is it possible for them to do so.

In order to succeed in a defamation claim where I live in Australia, the plaintiff must prove the statement was published, identified them, was defamatory, and caused serious harm to their reputation. All of these elements must be present. 

- the statement must be communicated to at least one other person. 

- the statement must refer to the plaintiff.

- th plaintiff must prove the publication caused, or was likely to cause, serious harm to their reputation. 

Here's where that last point falls down and must always fall down in relation to a dead people.

Someone's Estate is NOT the plaintiff. I know that upon hearing that this sounds immediately obvious but sometimes the most obvious things need to be said to make the point.

Not only is someone's Estate not the Person, but an Estate is also not a Person. An Estate at law, is in fact a Trust and therefore not covered by personhood either as an Individual or a Company.

At Common Law dead people have no rights and a person's reputation cannot be violated if they are no longer alive. Only a living person can bring a legal action for defamation. As dead people have no rights at law, the right to sue is also extinguished upon their death. Even if a living person brings a legal action for defamation, that action ends when they die. 

You can say what you like about any dead person. You can tell all kinds of lies, make up the most outlandish and outrageous and even scandalous garbage and nonsense that you like, and there ain't a thing that the dead person or their estate can do about it. Reputation and fame and defamation belongs to the realm of the living; which means that the weaponsation of this new orthodoxy is also done by the living, not on behalf of the dead but on behalf of themselves. 

Horse 3486 - Was The Death Of Charlie Kirk "Worth It"?

I am hesitant to use the words 'conservative' and 'liberal' in this context because I have no idea what exactly is being conserved as the United States runs even further down the road into illiberalism. I am also convinced that the terms 'left' and 'right' as they are used in the United States is completely irrelevant to any kind of proper economic analysis.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk is objectively evil. He has been stolen from a wife who now no longer has a husband, and two children who no longer have a daddy. They have to live with the consequences of an evil bastard's actions for the rest of their lives. 

Yet here's the absolutely idiotic thing about the United States: absolutely nothing meaningful will happen as a result of this.

Granted that the President will more than likely award Charlie Kirk some token medal posthumously, like the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as if a medal in a box was any compensation at all for the loss of a husband and father, but in essence the United States will yell madly for ten days and then forget about this. In the meantime, another five mass shootings will occur.

Why? Fundamentally the United States doesn't and has never held those truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. It has always held that some people are worth less than others and has repeatedly legislated as such. Neither does it believe that people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, of among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, because if it did it would do something about protecting those rights. It does not. It refuses too... joyfully.

The difference between the two big political football teams in the United States are the colours of the flags they wave. One waves a rainbow flag, the other a flag of khaki fatigue. They are playing the same game by the same rules; both of them are dedicated to the proposition that killing people is acceptable. Between the Second Amendment and Guns and Abortion Rights, the United States consistently kills more people than all the wars it has fought in.

Only months ago, Minnesota politician Melissa Hortman and her husband were fatally shot in an equally politically motivated assassination, after that gunman visited four homes belonging to state lawmakers.

Do you remember that? No? Let's start up the political cheering by claiming that this was a plot by the other football team. Selective memory really is a strong thing, isn't it?

The really idiotic thing about this is that not only does the United States find this acceptable but thinks that killing innocent people is a necessary cost of their so-called 'freedom'.

https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-says-gun-deaths-worth-it-2nd-amendment-1793113

Charlie Kirk, the conservative founder and president of Turning Point USA, said during an organizational event on Wednesday that gun deaths in exchange for the preservation of Second Amendment rights is part of America's reality.

...

You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death," Kirk said at a Turning Point USA Faith event on Wednesday, as reported by Media Matters for America. "That is nonsense. It's drivel. But I am—I think it's worth it.

"I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe."

- Newsweek, 6th Apr 2023

God-given? Really? I must have missed this because between Torah, and Jesus' clarification on the two greatest commandments, I just don't see how having the instruments of murder could be a "God-given right". You're going to have to cite scripture for this to prove that.

Also, this was the words of Charlie Kirk in the abstract; where the deaths of other innocent people were acceptable to him. Would his own wife and children still agree with him, considering that his life has been paid as blood sacrifice? Is that really an acceptable cost? Is it rational?

I think that killing people is evil. I think that allowing people the right to keep the instruments of death is both evil and stupid. If you think that the Second Amendment is a right worth having, then you must accept the death of Charlie Kirk as "prudent" and "rational". As a result, I think that you are both evil and stupid.

Horse 3485 - Magna Carta - The BIG Delusion VII

24

The writ called ‘praecipe’ is not to be issued to anyone in respect to any free tenement in such a way that a free man might lose his court.

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A Writ of Praecipe is an order from a court which instructs someone to perform an action. Pay your taxes. Fix that fence. Control your livestock. Pay your workers. These are all orders which might be instructed of someone to perform by a Writ of Praecipe.

The issue in Clause 24 is that the earls and barons did not wish to be directed to do anything by anyone. Furthermore, as they owned the courts within their own hundreds and counties, they certainly did not wish to be directed to do anything by a higher court; especially not the King's court.

The truth was that for a while, England had a peculiar system of law which although derived from Danelaw was unique to the sceptered isle. The Common Law, which prescribed the rule of precedent, said that what had previously been declared in a higher court, had application in a lower court. With a feudal system imposed, English courts which were run by the earls and barons, absolutely did not want Common Law imposed from without; especially Common Law being imposed from Norman and French Courts. 

25

There is to be a single measure for wine throughout our realm, and a single measure for ale, and a single measure for Corn, that is to say the London quarter, and a single breadth for dyed cloth, russets, and haberjects, that is to say two yards within the lists. And it shall be the same for weights as for measures.

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...but nobody to know what it is?

I get the need for standardisation of weights and measures but to then neglect to state what kinds of weights and measures are to be used throughout the realm, is just plain daft.

It is one thing to suggest that there ought to be a law but quite another to merely stop there and neglect to define the terms of what that law is. This is a lovely sentiment but awful in execution.

26

Henceforth there is to be nothing given for a writ of inquest from the person seeking an inquest of life or member, but such a writ is to be given freely and is not to be denied.

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In doing the research to find out what kind of conditions existed before Magna Carta, I was shocked to learn that in order for someone to apply for an inquest into why someone had died, which the only reason that you would want to conduct such a thing is because of the negligence of someone else, then the person requesting the inquest would have to pay a surety to the court in question. Naturally this was open to rampant corruption and a direct conflict of interest if the person who had been killed had been killed upon the order or the earl or baron who owned the court.

This demand that there is to be nothing given for a writ of inquest, works fine for someone making an application to the King's Courts but in practice would not be applied to the local courts operated by the earls and barons. Clause 26 is an upwards demand which in practice, would have no application to the burghers, peasants, or serfs. Nothing would be given by the people who wanted to seek an inquest but at the same token, a court owned and operated by a baron or earl might demand it of someone else.

With respect to a Coronial Inquest today, these kinds of proceedings only really happen in suspicious circumstances, or in relation to a crime against the person which has resulted in loss of life; and as a result where Manslaughter or Murder charges might be laid. Death by misadventure or accident cases, will also pass through Coroners' Courts.

27

If any persons hold from us at fee farm or in socage or burgage, and hold land from another by knight service, we are not, by virtue of such a fee farm or socage or burgage, to have custody of the heir or their land which pertains to another’s fee, nor are we to have custody of such a fee farm or socage or burgage unless this fee farm owes knight service. We are not to have the custody of an heir or of any land which is held from another by knight service on the pretext of some small serjeanty held from us by service of rendering us knives or arrows or suchlike things.

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'Socage' is a nice ye olde worlde word for 'rent' but not that kind of rent which demands military service from an underling. Clause 27 basically stipulates that if someone is renting from someone else, then the lessor can not come at the lessee for fees and rents which relate to some other lessor's land. The mere existence of the fact that there even needs to be this kind of clause is quite frankly astonishing to a modern audience. We take it for granted that a landlord can only extract rents from someone which relates to the land/house/building/apartment being rented but apparently the earls and the barons of the thirteenth century had no such qualms about extracting rent relating to land that they did not own.

Clause 27 also gives us a window into the equally absurd practice of holding someone else's heirs or wards in custody, upon invention of some minor military service; hence the inclusion of the items of knives and arrows.

28

No bailiff is henceforth to put any man on his open law or on oath simply by virtue of his spoken word, without reliable witnesses being produced for the same.

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In other words, the owners of a court can not simply charge someone with an offence because the earls and barons feel like it. This clause exists in a time way before the invention of any kind of modern police force, or the use of warrants or writs to direct bailiffs and sheriffs to search premises and/or seize property.

We have finally found something which has relevance today. Here's the thing though: I live in New South Wales; where the Search Warrants Act 1985 and the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002, define the types of warrants, and the powers of the police and courts, to issue, enforce, and execute them. Clause 28 by virtue of having been superseded by statute on multiple occasions at this point, has zero effect. Statute Law prevails. 

29

No free man is to be taken or imprisoned or disseised of his free tenement or of his liberties or free customs, or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go against such a man or send against him save by lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. To no-one will we sell or deny or delay right or justice.

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The Cookers and Wingnuts will read Clause 29 and think that just because this says that the barons and the earls will not go against someone "save by lawful judgment of his peers" then they do not have to submit to the courts; despite and in spite of the fact that the next immediate words in the same sentence read "or by the law of the land". 

Again, I live in New South Wales; so the Jury Act 1977 is the principal act which defines when a jury is to be used in a court case. The Jury Act is a statute in the law of the land. This does not in any way mean that if you are driving while disqualified, or have stolen from a shop, or slugged someone with your fists, or have caused a nuisance or a public disturbance or have engaged in civil disorder, that you are entitled to a jury. 

The only part which has any operation today, and it has take us 29 clauses to get here is that:

To no-one will we sell or deny or delay right or justice.

Finally we have a winner. Courts are restricted and in fact do not sell justice. 

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At this point we finally add 1 to the tally; though not in the way that the people who assert that they have magical Magna Carta rights think that they do. 

Today's running tally of Clauses in Magna Carta which might apply to someone in court in Australia today is:

1/29.

ONE!

Horse 3484 - Magna Carta - The BIG Delusion VI

18

If anyone holding a lay fee from us should die, and our sheriff or bailiff shows our letters patent containing our summons for a debt that the dead man owed us, our sheriff or bailiff is permitted to attach and enrol all the goods and chattels of the dead man found in lay fee, to the value of the said debt, by view of law-worthy men, so that nothing is to be removed thence until the debt that remains is paid to us, and the remainder is to be released to the executors to discharge the will of the dead man, and if nothing is owed to us from such a person, all the chattels are to pass to the [use of] the dead man, saving to the dead man’s wife and her [or their] children their reasonable portion.

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The idea that sheriffs or bailiffs have the right to claim chattel and property (a lay fee) by way of discharging a debt, is still with us today. Usually if someone has defaulted upon some debt, such as commercial credit like a credit card or upon a mortgage, then the creditors have the ability to go to court and have the sheriffs or bailiffs repossess and reclaim goods and/or real property.

Clause 18 extends this right beyond the grave; which now means that the earls and barons have the ability to claim chattel and property from a deceased estate. The problem with this is that as they already own the courts and judges, it is hideously easy for them to donkey up some list of claims and extract a letters patent from the courts, which they control.

This is all the more monstrous and hideous when you consider that the goods and chattel are being reclaimed from the widows and children of the deceased person, who themselves might not have actually had legal standing in court; which means no ability at all to contest the reclamation of property from them. 

Clause 18 is a nice way for the barons and earls to steal property from poorer people, by redefining what was legal. Remember, it isn't stealing if you don't want it to be and since you already own the law, the law isn't going to disagree with you.

19

No constable or his bailiff is to take corn or other chattels from anyone who not themselves of a vill where a castle is built, unless the constable or his bailiff immediately offers money in payment of obtains a respite by the wish of the seller. If the person whose corn or chattels are taken is of such a vill, then the constable or his bailiff is to pay the purchase price within forty days.

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This sounds incredibly strange to a twenty-first century audience but the underlying concept which is being touched upon here is the nature of feudal taxation.

Taxation as we know it is paid to a central authority, which is usually an agency of the federal government of the nation state. That's all good and fine, but when you have a largely agrarian society which for the most part the peasantry are absent of coin, then taxation measures and excises must be collected locally.

For the earls and barons and people in charge of a hundred, taxation claims would be directly laid upon stores of corn or other fungible and presumably semi-storable commodity. It makes no sense for instance to collect beef as a taxation payment because unless you have the means to cure it or salt it, then if is going to go off.

Clause 19 is the statement that constables and bailiffs will only operate within their own hundred, or country, or duchy, and even then, only take taxation from the villeins therein. If they want to lay claim to corn or other chattels from anyone, then the instruction is to pay monies; which seems reasonable.

20

No constable is to distrain any knight to give money for castle guard if the knight is willing to do such guard in person or by proxy of any other honest man, should the knight be prevented from doing so by just cause. And if we take or send such a knight into the army, he is to be quit of [castle] guard in accordance with the length of time that we have him in the army for the fee for which he has done service in the army.

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England in the 13th Century does not have a standing army. If in the event that there was a war called, then the Lords, Earls, and Barons, would call downwards for the Knights to either provide military service, or provide infantry for same. England in the 13th Century also does not have a standing police force. Policing is provided for by sheriffs in the employ of the owner of the hundred, and/or directly by the knight themselves or by some armed retinue.

So in order to keep broader civil order, Clause 20 has the intent of extracting the guard/police service either from the knights themselves, or by their proxies who will do the job for them. And naturally, if a knight has been called into service in the army, then they can not be physically present for the task of castle guard; so they are relieved of that duty for that particular time. 

The interesting thing about the beginning of Clause 20 is that it implies that the Barons and Earls could send their Constables and probably Sheriffs to demand payment if a knight didn't want to actually do the job of guard/police service. In this respect, taxation for services rendered seems perfectly reasonable. 

The real irony is that when the cookers get in court and say that they rely on Magna Carta for their defence of wanting to get out of some civic duty like a petty minded moron, that Clause 20 actually supports the concept of taxation for civil services. Not once have I ever heard of the alternative where one of these fools, intends to enlist in the Police Service in lieu of paying taxation though.

21

No sheriff or bailiff of ours or of anyone else is to take anyone’s horses or carts to make carriage, unless he renders the payment customarily due, namely for a two-horse cart ten pence per day, and for a three-horse cart fourteen pence per day. No demesne cart belonging to any churchman or knight or any other lady [sic] is to be taken by our bailiffs, nor will we or our bailiffs or anyone else take someone else’s timber for a castle or any other of our business save by the will of he to whom the timber belongs.

- 

Since the prime driver of economic activity is agriculture, then taking someone's horses or carts, is to literally take away their livelihood. In this case, the earls and barons have decided that they will pay five and seven times the amount which would be normally due to a day labourer at the time.

Clause 21 does give away the general sentiment of the time that the church was an entity to be respected. One of the aspects of the feudal system was that even the earls and barons, and the king, felt that they would be answerable to God or  at very least were prepared to accept that the church was their propaganda piece to make known to the peasants and slaves, who was in charge, who people were answerable to, and that they were at the top because God had said so. 

22

We shall not hold the lands of those convicted of felony save for a year and a day, whereafter such land is to be restored to the lords of the fees.

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Again, given that agriculture is the prime driver of economic activity during the middle ages, confiscating the lands of someone who has been convicted of felony is a pretty severe penalty. If they happened to be a freeman who held the land, then restoring to the lords of the fees, seems like an extraction tool to permanently concentrate land ergo power, into the hands of the already rich and powerful.

If someone was already a knight in possession of the fee, then restoring their lands to their lords, also concentrates land and power upwards.

About the only person whom this wouldn't likely affect, are the lords, earls, and barons, who would have their estates managed by someone in the interim and then restored to them. This of course assumes that a lord, earl, or baron, actually can be convicted of a felony; which given the interaction of this with Clause 14 which reads that "Earls and barons are not to be amerced save by their peers", is highly unlikely. Why would an earl or baron convict one of their own, except if they wanted to acquire lands vampirically?

23

All fish weirs [kidelli] on the Thames and the Medway and throughout England are to be entirely dismantled, save on the sea coast.

- 

This is a highly specific clause that literally has zero application in Australia. In all honesty it has zero application in most of the rivers in England as well. Basically what is going on, is that fences were erected across the Thames to prevent fish from travelling further upstream than about Richmond; to maximise the catch available to the King's household.

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In this post of the run through Magna Carta, we heave learned of the pettiness of the claims therein. It really does make you wonder about the kinds of people who want to rely on it to get out of whatever infringement of law that they have been brought to court over.

Today's running tally of Clauses in Magna Carta which might apply to someone in court in Australia today is:

0/23.

But do go banging on about fish weirs, please.