The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface to the Liberty Fund Edition
• The Roots of Liberty
• Editor’s Introduction: (not Availbale Online For Copyright Reasons)
• 1.: The Ancient Constitution In Medieval England (j.c. Holt)
• 2.: The Place of Magna Carta and the Ancient Constitution In Sixteenth-century English Legal Thought (christopher W. Brooks)
• 3.: Ancient Constitutions In the Age of Sir Edward Coke and John Selden (paul Christianson)
• 4.: The Jurisprudence of Liberty: the Ancient Constitution In the Legal Historiography of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (john Phillip Reid)
• Epilogue: Diverse Viewpoints On Ancient Constitutionalism (corinne Comstock Weston)
• Appendix: Text and Translation of Magna Carta *
• The Great Charter of Henry Iii
• The Third Great Charter of King Henry the Third; *
• Notes On Contributors

Notes on Contributors

christopher w. brooks studied at Princeton and Johns Hopkins before receiving his D.Phil. from Oxford University. He has held fellowships at the Huntington Library and at the National Humanities Center and is a Lecturer in History at the University of Durham. He is the author of Pettyfoggers and Vipers of the Commonwealth: The “Lower Branch” of the Legal Profession in Early Modern England and is currently working on a book about law, society, and politics in England from 1485 to 1660.

paul christianson studied at St. Olaf College and the University of Minnesota, where he received his Ph.D. He is Professor of History at Queens University, Ontario, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and has held fellowships at the Huntington Library. His publications include Reformers and Babylon: English Apocalyptic Visions from the Reformation to the Eve of the Civil War. His study of John Selden has so far resulted in publication of “John Selden, the Five Knights’ Case, and Discretionary Imprisonment in Early Stuart England,” “Royal and Parliamentary Voices on the Ancient Constitution, c. 1604–1621,” and “Young John Selden and the Ancient Constitution, ca. 1610–18.”

j. c. holt holds his D.Phil. from Oxford and until 1988 when he retired was Professor of Medieval History and Master of Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge University. He has served as President of the Royal Historical Society, and he is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. His books include Magna Carta (1965; 2d ed., 1992) and Magna Carta and Medieval Government. He recently became Sir James Holt, having been knighted in 1990 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

john phillip reid was educated at Georgetown University, the Harvard Law School, the University of New Hampshire, and New York University School of Law, where he received his LL.M. and J.S.D. and where he is Professor of Legal History. He has held fellowships with the Guggenheim Foundation and the Huntington Library. His recent books include The Constitutional History of the American Revolution (3 vols.); The Concept of Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution; and The Concept of Representation in the Age of the American Revolution.

ellis sandoz studied at Louisiana State University, Georgetown University, the University of Heidelberg, and the Ludwig Maximillian University in Munich, where he completed the Dr.oec.publ. He is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute for American Renaissance Studies at Louisiana State University. He has been a Fellow of the Huntington Library, a 40th Anniversary Fulbright Distinguished American Scholar, and a member of the National Council on the Humanities. His recent books include A Government of Laws: Political Theory, Religion, and the American Founding; Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730–1805; and Eric Voegelin’s Significance for the Modern Mind.

corinne comstock weston studied at the University of Maine and received her Ph.D. from Columbia University. She is Professor Emeritus of History at Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York and served also as a member of the Ph.D. Faculty of CUNY. She is an American Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has served on the National Screening Committee for the Fulbright-Hays Program and as a reader for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her publications include English Constitutional Theory and the House of Lords, 1556–1832; with Janelle Greenberg, Subjects and Sovereigns: The Grand Controversy over Legal Sovereignty in Stuart England; “The Theory of Mixed Monarchy under Charles I and After”; and “England: Ancient Constitution and Common Law.”

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