THIS is the year of Magna Carta. It is the 800th anniversary of the signing of the document that is seen as the basis of law and liberty around the world.

This week, tickets have gone on sale for a major exhibition in Durham this summer in which the main exhibits will be the three 13th Century copies of the charter, and the three copies of its associated document called the Forest Charter, which belong to Durham Cathedral.

The charter was first signed by King John at Runnymede on June 15, 1215, as he attempted to forge a peace agreement with his revolting nobles who were fed up with having to pay scutage and socage – ancient taxes – to cover his wars. They also resented the way that if they didn’t pay, the monarch would unilaterally fine them vast amounts of money, or throw them in prison and confiscate their property.

So Magna Carta was about law and liberty. It was about bringing the king, for the first time, under the control of the law of the land, just like everybody else. It said no taxes could be imposed without “the general consent of the realm”. It linked fines to the severity of the offence, and it said that no widow could be forced to marry against her wishes, and it spoke about who was allowed to fish in the River Thames.

Perhaps its most famous clause, which is often known as clause 29, reads: “No Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold (ie: have his land confiscated), or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.”

So King John was promising to treat everyone lawfully, and the nobles were promising to pay their taxes on time.

Magna Carta was rather woolily worded, and so it was quickly and regularly rewritten. For centuries after, every time a king was experiencing difficulty with his nobles, he would knock out a revised version of Magna Carta to try to persuade them that he was abiding by the highest principles.

The first reissue was on November 12, 1216. King John had died and his nine-year-old son, Henry III, was desperate to stop the war with the barons and so his advisers reissued Magna Carta to get the barons on board.

In those days, there were no printers or photocopiers, so every copy of the document had to be written by hand. Four copies of the first 1215 Magna Carta survive – two at the British Library, and others at Lincoln and Salisbury cathedrals – and the only copy of the second Magna Carta, of 1216, is in the collection of Durham Cathedral. It will be the centrepiece of the exhibition which opens in Palace Green Library on June 1.

Also in the exhibition will be charters reissued in 1225 and 1300.

Copies of the charters were sent to all four corners of the kingdom so they could be read, probably from a cathedral pulpit, several times a year. In the days before television and newspapers, this was the best way for the king to get his message out to the provinces.

However, the charter only applied to “freemen” – the nobility. The majority of people were villeins, who were unfree. They were tied to their local landowner and his laws.

Therefore, the Forest Charter was more relevant to them than Magna Carta. Today, we think of forests as dense areas of trees, but back in the 13th Century, a forest was whatever the king said it was. The king owned the forests and set the laws that applied to the forests. Therefore, it was death for anyone who hunted a deer in a royal forest, and anyone who damaged the trees was heavily fined –when wood was the main fuel for heating, this was a difficult crime to avoid committing. Indeed, realising how much money they could raise through these fines, successive kings had decreed that even moors and fields were forests so that the people had to pay to use them.

The Forest Charter relinquished the king’s hold on land that was not covered by trees and allowed the people to freely cultivate it. Only two copies of the first version of this charter, from November 1217, survive: one at Lincoln and the other at Durham.

The Forest Charter was then reissued every time Magna Carta was reissued, and so Durham also has versions of it from 1225 and 1300.

The monks of Durham seem to have been the most assiduous of archivists in the country, which means that the cathedral has one of the best collections of these ancient documents in the country. Six 13th Century charters – three Magnas and three Forest – will be in this summer’s exhibition.

The exhibition is entitled Magna Carta and the Changing Face of Revolt. The barons in 1215 wrested reform from an unwilling king, challenging his authority by their rebellion, and so the exhibition will also use documents in the cathedral’s collection to illustrate other challenges to authority, like the Wars of the Roses, the Chartists and even the modern Occupy movement.

But Carta is the starter, the first one. Even though a third of it was written within ten years and nearly all of it has been repealed, it is the cornerstone of Britain’s unwritten constitution as it is the first attempt to write equality and fairness into the country’s laws.

It is perhaps more revered abroad. The Americans love it – the Pilgrim Fathers took a copy with them and based the US constitution upon it. William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln used it to abolish slavery and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drawn up in the aftermath of the Second World War, was inspired by it.

It might be 3,500 words of impenetrable Latin written on calfskin parchment, but it is the most famous document in the world – and our local versions of it are about to go on display, connecting us with those momentous events 800 years ago.

1209

King John refused to accept Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury

1214

John’s mercenary army lost the Battle of Bouvines in northern France. Money for the king’s soldiers was raised through an unpopular tax called “scutage” levied on the English barons

May 1215

The barons, backing Langton, rebelled. From Northampton, they marched on Lincoln, London and Exeter

June 15, 1215

John was forced to enter into negotiations at Runnymede, beside the Thames in Surrey. The rebel barons demanded that he accept a “charter of liberties”, which had probably been drawn up by Langton. This was Magna Carta. Its main points concerned protection of church rights, no illegal imprisonment, swift justice and a limitation on tax, all to be overseen by a council of 25 barons. Among the 25 barons signing the charter were William de Mowbray of Thirsk; Richard de Percy of Whitby; John Clavering, lord of Warkworth Castle, and Eustace de Vescy, lord of Alnwick Castle.

September 1215

John asked Pope Innocent III to annul Magna Carta, and the Pope described it as “illegal, unjust, harmful and shameful”. But the barons refused to relinquish London, and supported an invasion by Prince Louis, the son of the king of France

January 13, 1216

John had marched north to quell the rebellious barons of Yorkshire. Once they melted away, he stormed over the Tees and captured Berwick. John knew the North-East quite well – he visited York 17 times and was the first monarch in six decades to set foot in Newcastle

October 10, 1216

John died of dysentery – apparently brought on by gluttony – at Newark. His nine-year-old son, Henry III, became king

November 12, 1216

To woo the barons and quell the civil war, Henry III’s advisers reissued Magna Carta in Bristol. The original’s 63 clauses were reduced to 42. Durham has the only copy of this reissue

November 1217

A year later, with the French army gone, the Great Council of church leaders and barons met with the king’s advisers and decided to reissue a rewritten charter. A Forest Charter was issued at the same time, applying to those who lived under a separate legal system within the Royal Forests. Durham has a copy of the first Forest Charter

February 11, 1225

The Great Council agreed to raise £40,000 in tax to pay for an English army to go to France and recapture Henry III’s territory in Gascony. In return, Henry III – nearing the age of maturity – reissued Magna Carta and the Forest Charter of his own “spontaneous and free will”. Durham has copies of both reissues

1297

Edward I had succeeded his father, Henry III, in 1272. The notion of “parliament”, comprising representatives from every corner of the land, was evolving quickly. However, Edward was also involved in expensive wars in Wales, Scotland and Gascony, and he taxed the nobility to pay for them. The nobility demanded their rights, and forced Edward to release a Confirmatio Cartarum – a charter confirming that he abided by Magna Carta

March 28, 1300

Back from his wars in France, Edward I reissued both Magna Carta and the Forest Charter in amended form. Durham has copies of both

Magna Carta and the Changing Face of Revolt

June 1 to August 31

Palace Green Library, Durham

Tickets: £7.50 for adults; £6.50 children; £25 family

Entry is by timed ticket only. To book call 0844-844-0444 or go online to ticketmaster.co.uk or call in at the Palace Green library.

For more information, go to durham.ac.uk/palace.green