Emperor Otto IV of Brunswick and masterminded by John was soundly defeated at
the battle of Bouvines in 1214. It was a defining moment, not so much for English
rule on the Continent (which would continue until the fifteenth century) as for
England itself, where the barons—supported by many members of the gentry and the
towns—organized, rebelled, and called the king to account. At Runnymede, just
south of London, in June 1215, John was forced to agree to the charter of baronial
liberties called Magna Carta, or “Great Charter,” so named to distinguish it from a
smaller charter issued around the same time concerning royal forests.
Magna Carta was intended to be a conservative document defining the
“customary” obligations and rights of the nobility and forbidding the king to break
from these without consulting his barons. Beyond this, it maintained that all free men
in England had certain customs and rights in common that the king was obliged to
uphold. “To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay right or justice.”^6
In this way, Magna Carta documented the subordination of the king to written
provisions; it implied that the king was not above the law. Copies of the charter were
sent to sheriffs and other officials, to be read aloud in public places. Everyone knew
what it said, and later kings continued to issue it—and have it read out—in one form
or another. Though not a “constitution,” nevertheless Magna Carta was an important
step in the institutionalization of the English government.
SPAIN AND FRANCE IN THE MAKING
Two states—Spain and France—started small and beleaguered but slowly grew to
embrace the territory we associate with them today. In Spain, the reconquista was
the engine driving expansion. Like the king of England, the kings from northern Spain
came as conquerors. But unlike England, Christian Spain had numerous kings who
competed with one another. By the mid-thirteenth century, Spain had the threefold
political configuration that would last for centuries (compare Map 6.1 on p. 198 with
Map 7.5 on p. 253 and Map 8.5 on p. 298): to the east was the kingdom of Aragon;
in the middle was Castile; and in the southwest was Portugal.
All of the Spanish kings appointed military religious orders similar to the Templars
to form permanent garrisons along their ever-moving frontier with al-Andalus. But
how were the kings to deal with formerly Muslim-controlled lands? When he
conquered Cuenca in 1177, King Alfonso VIII of Castile (r.1158–1214) established a
bishopric and gave the city a detailed set of laws (fueros) that became the model for
other conquests. Confiding enforcement to local officials, the king issued the fueros
