The 1225 Magna Carta: A More Compassionate Society? by Professor Louise Wilkinson FSA

2025 is the 800th anniversary of the 1225 reissue of Magna Carta (The Great Charter), which is widely regarded as the “definitive” version of this iconic document, since it entered England’s statute books. Although the 1215 Magna Carta, issued by King John at Runnymede, remains one of the most famous documents in the Anglophone world, it was valid for just a matter of weeks and failed dismally as a peace treaty between King John and his rebellious barons. It was during the reign of King Henry III (r. 1216-1272) that Magna Carta really came into its own and secured a future when it was reissued in 1216, 1217, and 1225, in amended forms. While it may be tempting to see the 1225 Magna Carta as a document that was intended to protect the wealth and privileges of male landed elites, it also contained clauses designed to protect the interests of women, children and families. In this talk, Louise Wilkinson, a historian of medieval women, discusses why Magna Carta mattered for these broader groups and asks whether its clauses and their implementation in the thirteenth century reveal a more compassionate society?

Louise Wilkinson is Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Lincoln. Her research focuses on women, politics and aristocratic culture in late medieval England. She was a co-investigator of ‘The Magna Carta Project‘ in 2012-15, and before that of ‘Between Magna Carta and the Parliamentary State: The Fine Rolls of King Henry III, 1216-72‘. Prof Wilkinson has published widely on medieval women and thirteenth-century life. Her next book – Women, Lordship and Power: The English Aristocracy, 1199-1327 – is contracted to Routledge’s Medieval World Series. She is a trustee of the Lincoln Record Society and the Historic Lincoln Trust, and joint series editor of Routledge’s Lives of Royal Women book series.


This lecture was sponsored and hosted by the Society of Antiquaries of London in its apartments at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London. The Society recorded the proceedings and, with permission of the speaker(s), made them available online here, and on its website at www.sal.org.uk. All rights reserved.