Magna Carta
sealed 1215, reissued 1216, 1217, 1225
- Magna Carta, the Great Charter, was ‘Given by our hand (King John reluctantly set his seal to it) in the meadow which is called Runnymede (field-name: meaning council or assembly island), between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June…’ 1215.
- Negotiated between King John and the Barons under threat of Civil War. This document had a preamble and 63 clauses. Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury and William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke and Striguil (whose vast estates included Pembroke, Chepstow / Striguil and Goodrich Castles) were crucial in forcing / persuading the agreement.
- After King John's death, it was William Marshall, now the Regent of England for the boy King Henry III, who re‐issued the Charter in 1216, a shortened version of about 38 clauses.
- In 1217 William Marshall again re‐issued Magna Carta, along with 7 expanded clauses called The Charter of the Forest as a separate document. (Magna Carta was again reissued by King Henry III in 1225.)
- It is thanks to William Marshall, 'the greatest knight', that Magna Carta survived to become the foundation for equality and freedom. His tomb effigy is in the Temple Church in London. His portrait was one of the 46 paintings that decorated the old Hereford Cathedral Chapter House (described 1642).
- It is William Marshall's 1217 issue of Magna Carta which is displayed in Hereford. This version is arguably just as significant as the 1215 charter in that it remained materially unchanged through the re‐issues and confirmations until, in 1297, it was enshrined in the written law of England.
- Magna Carta is significant in placing limits on power:
Clause 39: 'No free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or disseised (dispossessed) or outlawed or exiled or in any way victimised, neither will we attack him or send anyone to attack him, except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.'
- This was the basis for the 1628 Petition of Right, which led to the 1689 Bill of Rights, the 1789 Constitution of the United States of America, the 1791 Bill of Rights and the 1868 Fourteenth Amendment. See: here
The Old Wye Bridge
The river is the 4th longest in the UK, rising on Plynlimon in mid Wales and flowing into the River Severn 155 miles near the Severn estuary.
- Wye / Wey is an old British river name meaning 'flowing river'. Celtic / Iron Age (perhaps even older) river names are among the oldest surviving names.
- Originally crossed by a ford, a timber bridge was built and then rebuilt in stone c.1100 AD. Repaired.
- 1490 a stone gatehouse, destroyed, was built at the southern end, similar to the one in Monmouth.
- All the bays have cutwaters, used by pedestrians.
- Arch 1 (from north), 2, 4, 5 are largely 15th century. Arch 3 is 17th century. Arch 6 is 17-18th century.
- An apparent doorway can be seen under the arch on the Hereford side. It is probably for drainage.
- Widened 1826. Until the adjacent New Bridge was opened in 1966 the Old Bridge was the only one.
Place-Names & Field–Names
Field-Names are Archaeological Indicators of past use
You are walking through places and fields all of which have names which mean something.
Every piece of land that has been used anywhere in the world is likely to have, or had, a name. This allows it to be easily identified, which is useful for locating a particular field, recording its crop, noting its best use, and noting any working difficulties it might present. Such information can also be passed down the generations to future farmers.
Fields are named for practical reasons and so reflect something distinctive about a particular field. Soil suiting a certain crop could be recorded in the field–name, e.g: Wheat field. However, a Stoney field would have a lower yield and could even break the plough, which was an expense farmers would want to avoid. A Street field has an old Roman road in it somewhere. Farming was always at the mercy of the weather so any additional information about a field's potential was welcomed. It could make the difference between life and death as a failed crop often meant starvation. No supermarkets then....!
See: Herefordshire Through Time – Field Names & Landowners
and: fieldnames
