Liberty, Community, and the Free Man in Magna Carta Benjamin L
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2015 Liberty, Community, and the Free Man in Magna Carta Benjamin L. Mabry Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Mabry, Benjamin L., "Liberty, Community, and the Free Man in Magna Carta" (2015). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 198. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/198 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. LIBERTY, COMMUNITY, AND THE FREE MAN IN MAGNA CARTA A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Political Science by Benjamin L. Mabry B.A., University of New Orleans, 2009 May 2015 ©2015 Benjamin L. Mabry All Rights Reserved ii To my wife, without whose endless patience this work would not be possible And to my children, for whom this was written, in hope that the memory and spirit of liberty will remain in their hearts, and in their own children’s, until these words, too, are relegated to time immemorial iii Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 1 Defining the Liber Homo ......................................................................................................................... 3 Liber Homo and Tocius communia terre ............................................................................................... 10 Liber Homo in a Free Church................................................................................................................. 18 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 22 Chapter 1 .................................................................................................................................................. 24 Feudalism and the Liber Homo ............................................................................................................. 27 Free Tenure ....................................................................................................................................... 30 Obligations and Duties of Free Men.................................................................................................. 40 Liber Homo and Local Government ...................................................................................................... 45 Liber Homo and the Common Law........................................................................................................ 52 Magna Carta on the Liber Homo ........................................................................................................... 61 Chapter 2 .................................................................................................................................................. 69 12th Century Renaissance ...................................................................................................................... 72 Policraticus and Liberty ..................................................................................................................... 74 Policraticus and the King ................................................................................................................... 85 English History and the Laga Edwardi ................................................................................................... 91 Theory of History .............................................................................................................................. 92 The Sacred Cycle of English History................................................................................................. 101 Changing symbols: from the Good Kings to Good Laws .................................................................. 111 The Common Law “Ancient Constitution” .......................................................................................... 118 Common Law theory ....................................................................................................................... 125 Normans and the Ancient Constitution........................................................................................... 130 The Political Philosophy of Magna Carta ......................................................................................... 133 Chapter 3 ................................................................................................................................................ 143 The Prince in the Realm ...................................................................................................................... 144 The Angevin Monarchy ................................................................................................................... 151 Free Men in a Free Church .................................................................................................................. 155 Liberty as a Christian Ideal .............................................................................................................. 157 iv The Church and the Ancient Constitution ....................................................................................... 169 Liber Homo and Burgesses Citizenship ............................................................................................... 176 Community of the Realm .................................................................................................................... 189 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 194 The Medieval Aristotelianism of St. Thomas and Fortescue ............................................................... 199 The Rise of the Burgesses and the “Dark Ages of Magna Carta”......................................................... 206 Liberal Thought and Magna Carta ....................................................................................................... 212 The Meaning of Liberty in Magna Carta .............................................................................................. 215 Epilogue .................................................................................................................................................. 220 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................................ 230 Vita ......................................................................................................................................................... 235 v Abstract This dissertation is an overview of the concept of liberty and community in Magna Carta. The central point is the ethical understanding of liberty which Salisbury calls the habitus of liberty. Liberty is an ethical condition of the individual which exists in tension and parallel to the social status of Liber Homo. This dual characterization of liberty is the causal factor behind the understanding of Magna Carta as both document and event in constitutional history in the related History literature on this topic. Because Liberty is understood in Magna Carta as a habitus, the particular behaviors associated with liberty, referred to in the modern parlance as rights, take on a significance that is distinct from their modern understanding. The practice of rights contributes to liberty but is not constitutive of liberty, as rights are exterior manifestations of an interior state of freedom. Insofar as the practice of free behaviors aid in the formation of personal character, they are helpful and good, but the deprivation of these behaviors, even by force, does not deprive the individual of liberty. Liberty, as a characteristic of personality, can only be lost when the individual voluntarily surrenders to servility. The medieval writers links this to Christian liberty of the soul; freedom is to virtue as slavishness is to sin. The characteristic of liberty is identified with the redeemed Christian soul and the transformative element of habitus in Aristotelian ethics is identified with the Pauline renovatio of the soul through the Holy Spirit. The elements of the vita libertatis, presented here as a refinement and completion of the ancient vita activa, are identified as a particular understanding of community as a multidimensionality of relationships which intersect on the individual upon diverging ontological, temporal, and relational axes, and are expressed through the typical life of a free individual. The 12th Century Liber Homo lived as a warrior, a landholder, a friend, a Christian, a judge, and a leader. Like the understanding of rights, these roles are not constitutive of the free