104 M A G 
his books that had been removed. He died in June 1714, 
at the age of eighty-one. 
MAGLI A'NO, a town of Italy, the fee of a bifhop : 
twenty-leven miles fouth-fouth-weft of Spoleto,and twenty- 
eight north of Rome. Lat.44.20. N. Ion. 12. 28. E. 
MAGLIA'NO, a town of Etruria -. twelve miles north- 
eaft of Orbitello. 
MAG'LOI, a town of Bofnia, on the Bofna : twenty- 
one miles north of Serajo, and thirty-five fouth-eaft of 
Banjaluka. 
MAGLOI'RE (Saint), a native of Wales, and coufin- 
german to St. Sampfon and St. Mallo. He embraced a 
monaltic life, and went into France, where he was made 
abbot of Del, and after that a provincial bifhop in Bri- 
tanny. He afterwards founded a mcnaftery in the ifland 
of Jerfey, where he died on the 14th of October, 575, 
about the age of eighty. His remains were tranfported 
to the fuburb of St. Jaques, and depofited in a monaftery 
of Benediftines, which was ceded to the fathers of the 
oratory in 1628. It is now the feminary of St. Magloire, 
celebrated on account of the learned men whom it has 
produced. This faint cultivated poetry with confiderable 
fuccefs : the hymn which is fung at the feaft of All Saints 
was compofed by him ; Calo quos eadtm gloria con far at, See. 
MAG'NA ASSI'SA ELIGEN'DA, is a writ anciently 
direfted to the fheriff for fumtnoning four lawful knights 
before the juftices of afiife, in order to choofe twelve 
knights of the neighbourhood, &c. to pafs upon the 
great offtfe between fuch a perfon plaintiff and fuch a one 
defendant. 
MAG'NA CHAR'TA, the. Great Charter of the 
liberties of England, figned and fealed by king John in a 
conference between the king and barons at Runnymede, 
between Windfor and Staines, June 19th, 1215, and con¬ 
firmed by Henry III. and Edward I. The reafon of its 
being termed Magna, or Great, is either becaufe of the 
excellency of the laws and liberties therein contained, or 
becaufe there was another charter, called Ckarta de Forejla, 
eftablifhed with it, which was the finaller of the two ; or 
elfe becaufe it contained more than any other charters ; 
or in regard of the wars and troubles in the obtaining of 
it; or of a great and remarkable folemnityin denouncing 
excommunications againff the infringers of it. 
Magna Charta may be laid to derive its origin from king 
Edward the Confelfor, who granted divers liberties and 
privileges, both civil and ecclefialtical, by charter: the 
fame, with fome others, were alfo granted and confirmed 
by king Henry I. foon after his coronation, and agreeably 
to an oath by* which he had bound himieif before he was 
crowned, by a celebrated great charter, r.ow loft. By this 
charter he reftored the Saxon laws which were in ufe un¬ 
der Edward the Confelfor, but with fuch alterations, or 
(as he ftyled them) “ emendations, as had been made in 
them by his father, with the advice of his parliamentat 
the fame time annulling “ all evil cuftoms and illegal ex¬ 
actions, by which the realm had been unjuftly oppreffed.” 
Some of thefe grievances were fpecified in the charter, and 
the rediefs of them was there exprefsly ena6fed. It alfo 
contained very confiderable mitigations of thofe feudal 
rights claimed by the king over his tenants, and by them 
over their’s, which either were the molt burthenfome in 
their own nature, or had been made lb by an abufive ex- 
tenfion. In ftiort, all the liberty, that could well be con- 
lillen: with the fafety and intereft of the lord in his fief, 
was all wed to the vafial by this charter ; and the profits 
due to the former were fettled according to a determined 
and moderate rule of law. According to the words of 
one of our greateft antiquaries, fir Henry Spelman, “ it 
was the original of king John’s Magna Charts, containing 
molt of the articles of it, either particularly expreiied, or 
in general, under the confirmation it gives to tne laws of 
Edward the Confelfor.” So miltuken are they, lays lord 
Lyttelton, who have fnppofed that all the privileges 
granted in Magna Charta were “innovations,” extorted 
Joy the arms of rebels from king John ! a notion which 
MAG 
feents to have been firft taken up, not fo much out of ig¬ 
norance, as front a bafe motive of adulation to fome of 
our princes in later times, who, endeavouring to gralp at 
abfolute power, were defirous of any pretence to confider 
thofe laws which ftood in their way as violent encroach¬ 
ments made by the barons on the ancient rights of the 
crown ; whereas they were in reality reftitutions and fanc- 
tions of ancient rights enjoyed by the nobility and people 
of England in former reigns; or limitations of powers 
which the king had illegally and arbitrarily ftretched be¬ 
yond their due bounds. In fome refpefts, favs our au¬ 
thor, this charter of Henry I. was more advantageous to 
liberty than Magna Charta itfelf. In confirmation of fir 
Henry Spelman’s opinion above mentioned, we may allege 
the teliimony of an ancient hiftorian. Matthew Paris 
tells us, that, in the year 1215, the barons came in arms 
to king John at London, and demanded of him that cer¬ 
tain liberties and laws of king Edward, with other liber¬ 
ties granted to them, and to the kingdom and church of 
England, fltould be confirmed, “ as they were contained 
and fet down in the charter of king Henry I. and in the 
laws above-mentioned.” And the fame hiftorian, where 
he mentions the capitula, or rough draught of the Great 
Charter delivered to John by the barons, fays, that the ar¬ 
ticles thereof “ were partly written before, in the charter 
of king Henry I. and partly taken out of the ancient laws 
of king Edward.” Thefe paftages, -nd alfo what he fays 
before, of the barons having fworn at St. Edmund’s Bury, 
to make war on the king, till he fltould confirm to them, 
by a charter under his feal, the laws anti liberties granted 
in the charter of Henfy I. fufficiently fhow, that they 
underftood and intended this charter to be the foundation 
of that which they demanded and obtained from John. 
With regard to another paflsge that occurs in Matthew 
Paris, relating to the charter of Henry I. and connected 
with his account of a convention or fynod held in London 
under Stephen Langton, archbifhop of Canterbury, in the 
year 1213, it imports that the charter of king Henry was 
then a “ novelty” to the barons, and that they expreifed 
a furprife of joy at hearing a copy of it read, which the 
archbifhop told them was “juft found.” But from the 
fame hiftorian we Jearn, that, after the charter was given, 
the king ordered as many tranferipts of it to be made as 
there were counties in England, and to be laid up, as re¬ 
cords, in the abbeys of every county. Befides, the firft: 
charter of Stephen “confirms the liberties and good laws, 
which his uncle king Henry gave and granted, and all 
good laws and good cuftoms which the nation had en¬ 
joyed in the time of Edward the Confelfor;” words which 
evidently refer to the charter. It was alfo confirmed more 
exprefsly by king Henry II. “ How is it poilible then,” 
fays lord Lyttelton, “ that in the reign of his fon it fhould 
be fo difficult to produce a fingle tranfeript of it, and 
that even the remembrance of what it contained fhould 
be fo totally loft among the principal nobles? The ftrong 
objections to fo Itrange a ftory did not efcape the pene¬ 
tration of the learned and judicious Dr. Blackltone. In 
his accurate edition of the charters, he takes notice of the 
great improbability of it; and further obferves, that it is 
mentioned by no other contemporary hiftorian ; but that, 
on the contrary, all of them affign quite different reafons 
for the confederacy of the barons. Our noble author adds, 
“ that the credit of this ftory is ftill more weakened, by its 
being only delivered upon common fame (at fama refert ), 
though it is faid to have pafled in faret. How can one fup- 
pofe that the particular words of a fpeech made in faret, 
could be accurately reported by common fame? That the 
archbifhop fhould produce to the barons a tranfeript of 
the charter, as a proper foundation for their confederacy, 
and for the demands, or claim of rights, they were to 
make to the king, I think (fays lord Lyttelton) is very 
probable. But that there could be any difficulty in find¬ 
ing fuch a tranfeript, or that it fhould be regarded by 
them as a novelty, appears to me quite incredible. How 
far Matthew Baas, or rather Roger de Wendover, (from 
whom 
