The Forgotten Father of Constitutional Liberty

Stephen Langton, from the exterior of
Canterbury Cathedral

Very little is known about Stephen Langton's childhood. What we do know is that he was born in the late twelfth century in the county of Lincolnshire. He first emerges from the shadow of obscurity as a star pupil at the University of Paris, where he befriended a fellow student who later became Innocent III, the most powerful of medieval popes. Thanks to this friendship, Langton was made a cardinal years later. He became renowned throughout Europe as a prolific expositor of scripture, publishing commentaries and treatises  - he even divided the Bible into the chapter/verse format we're so familiar with today. As profound as these accomplishments were, they pale in comparison with his greatest.

Hundreds of miles away, Langton's home was being torn between the teeth of Normans and Saxons, rich and poor, barons and king, church and state. The latest controversy was who would be Archbishop of Canterbury and therefore control the English church. King John had his man who would be sure to be loyal to the Crown, and the churchmen of England had theirs. Innocent III, ever intent on strengthening Papal power wherever it reached, saw an opportunity here to bring the English church firmly under Rome's control. He stepped in and engineered the election of a third candidate: a friend and a champion of the church; someone who would take orders from Rome without question. Langton's election was thus engineered, and King John's vengeance predictably broke out like a torrent.The struggle mounted until the king's plundering of the church resulted in his excommunication.

As serious as this conflict was, in English minds it was only a sideshow to one that had been simmering for centuries - that of barons and king. Every monarch since William the Conqueror had seen his greed for land, power and money frustrated by his equally greedy nobility. These barons were tired of spending their lives and fortunes in fruitless contests for what they considered the foreign lands in France.This friction between throne and fief had embroiled the kingdom in almost constant civil war for generations. Now that King John had been declared apostate by the church, this civil war became a holy war for the barons.

There seemed to be a thousand different ambitions clashing in the realm, like a pack of dogs tearing each other to pieces without a goal in mind. Langton saw an opportunity to bring order from the chaos, and it was now that he leaped into the contest. He had been reminded of something which the lords and churchmen of England could use to the advantage of themselves and the kingdom and posterity. He called for a council of churchmen and barons at Westminster, where he reminded those assembled of a certain "Charter of Liberties" which John's great-grandfather, Henry I, had been compelled by the barons to sign. True enough, that charter had dealt with only inconsequential matters like the illegality of certain fees kings had been accustomed to collect. But Langton saw here a precedent: that kings, too, were under the law. The Charter of Liberties should be expanded, renewed, and used to keep a lawless king accountable. With loud shouts of acclamation, the council swore an oath to conquer or die in defense of their liberties.

By now, however, the wily king had outmaneuvered his enemies. By swallowing his pride and submitting to the pope he had secured a powerful ally, but it had not been without a price. John's olive branch was nothing less than England itself - it would be governed as a Papal fief. Innocent III had jumped at the opportunity, but Langton balked. The last thing he wanted was more exploitation of the English people, whether from Westminster or Rome. Yet, the tables were now turned against him, and his cause was still fruitless. Continuing the struggle to check the king would mean going against the full might of both church and state. Perhaps Innocent had been misinformed. Clinging to that hope, the archbishop urged the barons to continue their efforts to check the king's ambition by refusing to submit to his taxes, and pressuring him to renew the Charter of Liberties or face open rebellion. John remained unmoved, and so in June 1215 the barons gathered their might to march on London, whose gates were thrown open by a sympathetic populace. There, with support from both France and Scotland, they forced John to agree to approve a royal charter that recognized the rights of his noblemen and, for the first time, codified legal limits to the king's power. Langton hurriedly set to work articulating the barons' grievances.

Dutifully, and no doubt seethingly, the king and his entourage processed to the nearby meadow of Runnymede to sign this charter in the midday sun of June 15, 1215. What he was forced to affix his seal to cannot have pleased him.The charter that Langton and the barons produced went far beyond the provisions of the Charter of Liberties in its effort to restrain the Crown. A few examples will suffice: Section 12 of this "Great Charter" said that "No scutage or aid shall be imposed on the kingdom unless by common counsel...." This principle became a rallying cry that found its way into subsequent charters until it was enshrined in the English Bill of Rights and became a principle of our own Revolution: "no taxation without representation." Section 20 said that barons could only be judged by their peers, not by courts in the pocket of the king. Freemen, too, would be judged by the oaths of honest men in their own neighborhoods. If this principle of English liberty sounds familiar it's because the Sixth Amendment of our Constitution contains it: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." The guarantee of a "speedy trial" was also found originally in Magna Charta: "To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice." The document further guaranteed the rights of merchants, provided that all sheriffs and constables would be "competent" and first enumerated the idea of a constitutional government: "All fines made... against the law of the land...shall be entirely remitted." To enforce these concessions, a council of 25 barons was appointed to oversee the king, his laws and fines.

Shortly after signing Magna Charta, John proceeded to break nearly every rule in it with the full sanction of Innocent III (who also condemned the document). John's successors, too, were not particularly more faithful to its idealistic clauses. But this does not mean that Langton's work was forgotten. It gave the struggle against tyranny a profound legitimacy, and the idea of a limited monarch entered into political thought. To see just how much the document mattered to the nation, consider that over the next two hundred years, the English kings were forced to renew the document over 30 times. Finally, during the dictatorial reign of Charles I (1600-1649), what were by now considered centuries' old liberties were transferred into the English Bill of Rights, thus diffusing throughout the English-speaking world to, among other places, America, where the principles Langton had devoted his life to securing found their way into colonial charters, state constitutions, and the United States Constitution itself.