Magna Charta

Proper noun

Magna Carta (countable and uncountable, plural Magna Cartas or Magnae Cartae or Magnæ Cartæ)

1. (historical) A charter granted by King John to the barons at Runnymede in 1215, which is one of the bases of English constitutional tradition; a physical copy of this charter, or a later version.
   • […] Significantly, only in England—where, beginning in the thirteenth century with the granting of the Magna Charta, there gradually developed an appreciation of the rights and dignities of those less powerful than the king—was the fury of witch hunting mitigated by legal safe-guards and social...1974, Thomas S[tephen] Szasz, chapter 11, in The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 192
2. A modified version of the charter of King John as granted by Henry III in 1236, confirmed as a statute by the Parliament of King Edward I in 1297, part of which remains in force in England and Wales.
   • My Lord Coke ſayes, It had not its name of GREAT CHARTER, from the Greatneſs of it in Quantity; for there were ſeveral Voluminous Charters, longer than this: But it was ſo called, in reſpect of the Great Importance, and Weightyneſs of the Matter; as Charta de Foresta, is called, Magna Charta de...[1680, Edward Cooke, transl., Magna Charta, Made in the Ninth Year of K. Henry the Third, and Confirmed by K. Edward the First, in the Twenty-Eighth Year of His Reign. With Some Short, but Necessary...

   Synonyms:

   the Carta, Great Charter

See all 3 meanings of Magna Carta