PHIL2634 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Magna Carta, Social Contract, Fundamental Orders Of Connecticut
Document Summary
Read and contrast (i) magna charta with (ii) the mayflower compact, and the connecticut. Medieval governments (in the years from roughly 400 to 1400) were not remotely democratic. For the middle centuries of that period, democracy was unknown, and when the idea was rediscovered in the 1200s they were not at all keen on it. The people" were most definitely not given any authority to rule. The magna charta or great charter" of 1215 agreed between king john and his barons was conventionally held to stand near the beginning of the great story of english history as the gradual growth of freedom. This narrative is now treated with much greater scepticism, but the document continues to be part of english law and is an important landmark in the history of efforts to restrain royal power. Over the centuries, the idea of agreement or compact" came to occupy an ever more important role in society at large.
