CLEP Western Civ I

Answer: E - Feudal barons benefitted the most from the Magna Carta. Signed by King John of England in 1215, the Magna Carta was the first document in English history through which a monarch’s powers were limited by the will of the people, in this case through the will of the feudal barons. It was the legal establishment that the people had rights that their leader was bound by law to honor. One of the most notable liberties protected through the document was the right of all freemen to be protected from arbitrary applications of power, meaning that citizens could only justly be punished by the government if the law warranted the punishment, not just because the king was displeased by them. It wasn’t always very effective at limiting the king’s powers, but its core idea, that even the king was bound by law, inspired England’s later political course. The Magna Carta’s supreme importance, in a historical context, is what followed it. The document inspired the concept of a written constitution that applied to all the citizens of a nation, even those with the most power.