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Some background information concerning the Magna Carta.

King John signs the Magna Carta. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Magna Carta was signed in June 1215 between the barons of Medieval England and King John. 'Magna Carta' is Latin and means "Great Charter". The Magna Carta was one of the most important documents of Medieval England.

It was signed (by royal seal) between the feudal barons and King John at Runnymede near Windsor Castle. The document was a series of written promises between the king and his subjects that he, the king, would govern England and deal with its people according to the customs offeudal law. Magna Carta was an attempt by the barons to stop a king - in this case John - abusing his power with the people of England suffering.

Why would a king - who was meant to be all powerful in his own country - agree to the demands of the barons who were meant to be below him in authority ?

England had for some years owned land in France. The barons had provided the king with both money and men to defend this territory. Traditionally, the king had always consulted the barons before raising taxes (as they had to collect it) and demanding more men for military service (as they had to provide the men). This was all part of the Feudal System.

So long as English kings were militarily successful abroad, relations with the barons were good. But John was not very successful in his military campaigns abroad. His constant demands for more money and men angered the barons. By 1204, John had lost his land in northern France. In response to this, John introduced high taxes without asking the barons. This was against feudal law and accepted custom.

John made mistakes in other areas as well. He angered the Roman Catholic Church. The pope, vexed by John's behaviour, banned all church services in England in 1207. Religion, and the fear of Hell, were very important to the people including the barons. The Catholic Church taught the people that they could only gain entrance to Heaven if the Catholic Church believed that they were good enough to get there. How could they show their goodness and love of God if the churches were shut ? Even worse for John was the fact that the pope excommunicated him in 1209. This meant that John could never get to Heaven until the pope withdrew the excommunication. Faced with this, John climbed down and accepted the power of the Catholic Church, giving them many privileges in 1214.

1214 was a disastrous year for John for another reason. Once again, he suffered military defeat in an attempt to get back his territory in northern France. He returned to London demanding more money from taxes. This time the barons were not willing to listen. They rebelled against his power. The barons captured London. However, they did not defeat John entirely and by the Spring of 1215, both sides were willing to discuss matters. The result was the Magna Carta.

Related articles

• Four last copies of Magna Carta united for first time

Guest Poet: Ted Edwards

‘Resettlement’ in the East

By Ted Edwards, a Quaker from Lincolnshire.

Prologue

On January 20, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich convened the ‘Wannsee’ Conference at a secluded villa near Berlin, to organise the “final solution to the Jewish question.”  Present were fifteen men, all military or officials from government agencies with powers to implement the “Evacuation of all Jews to the East”.  Participants at this conference used euphemisms to obscure their agreed plan, which was the mass deportation of Jews to killing centres.  This policy was carried out under the deceptive guise of “Resettlement in the East.”

In railway cattle trucks they went,

Jews forced out by ‘resettlement’.

In locked and putrid trucks packed tight,

they suffered, travelling day and night.

At least a thousand trains were used,

in each, three thousand souls abused.

These numbers just statistics tell,

for all inside, the trains to hell.

Such pain, vast numbers tend to hide,

but dare you join the Jews inside?

Pick any truck, they’re all the same,

and try to feel their awful pain.

Bewildered, hungry, bitter cold,

and sick with fear, both young and old,

save for the fretful babes that cry

because their mothers’ milk runs dry.

Their toilet, just an unscreened drum,

so much for them to overcome.

They helped each other brave this fear,

too private for the telling here.

The slow and jolting stopping train,

increased these anxious people’s strain.

And as there was no outside view,

their sense of isolation grew.

Most of the people on this train

from Czechoslovakia came.

Among the people bruised and sore;

a Jewish family of four.

Both Ivan (seven) and Judit (four)

crouched cold and hungry on the floor.

Their mother Sara stood nearby

with Marta (one), too weak to cry.

But Sara dared to hope and pray,

her husband Morris came this way;

slave worker, eastwards, sent last year,

perhaps they might resettle near?

Now two long days and nights have passed,

then silence: had they arrived at last?

Soon, shouted orders from outside

made Sara’s children, terrified.

The door flew open; blinding light!

The SS guard; a worrying sight.

“GET OUT, and leave your luggage near

and join that line AT ONCE you hear.”

All scrambled out as best they could,

their cramped legs aching when they stood.

And thus to Auschwitz II they came,

or Birkenau, its other name.

With luggage piled they joined the line,

but would the foul air clear with time?

Perhaps these poor folk couldn’t tell,

the nature of that dreadful smell.

Among the thousands standing there

was Sara, with a mother’s care;

calms her children with affection

as they waited for ‘Selection’.

‘Selected’ to the left or right,

determined their immediate plight.

Those ‘right’ were starved and worked to death,

those ‘left’; gas chambers; choking breath. . .

Then one by one by two by three,

they shuffled as a family.

Such dread in Sara’s heart that day,

should one be sent the other way.

A Nazi faced the shuffling line,

his casual wave, the trivial sign

that separated families there;

their parting grief, too much to bear. 

Sara and Marta; ‘left’ they went,

Judit and Ivan too were sent.

I saw them hand-in-hand depart,

a picture that still breaks my heart.

Who knows what Sara thought that day,

as hand-in-hand she led away

her children to ‘resettlement’.

Who could imagine what that meant?

What happened next I will not tell,

this Jewish family went through hell.

‘The Holocaust’, man’s greatest crime,

should not be told in simple rhyme.

Save only this; ‘Let this place be

A warning to humanity,

Forever crying in despair,’

‘REMEMBER’ pleads the plaque now there.

Epilogue

Morris Steinberg (35); Sara Liberman (27); Ivan Hief (7); Judit Hirsch (4) and Marta Berliner (1), ‘travelled’ from Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz where they were all murdered in 1944.  I was a boy of ten in 1944, and I well remember, perhaps just a little later, seeing a newsreel showing people walking to the gas chambers, and in particular a proud young woman holding a baby to her left shoulder, her right hand holding a little boy’s hand who in turn was holding his even younger sister’s hand.  This picture upsets me to this day, and I have taken the liberty of creating a similar family with real people who suffered the same fate; I pray they will all forgive me.  So many hoped to be reunited with their lost menfolk, that I hope Morris too will not feel used in any shallow way. 

On May 15^th 1944 mass deportation of Hungarian Jews began, and over the next 55 days some 438,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz on 147 trains.  Bearing in mind that one murder is a tragedy, I hesitate to do the ‘statistical’ maths; but 500 trains would ‘barely account’ for the Auschwitz crime alone.  My figure of 1000 trains in the rhyme probably needs to be increased considerably.

As a tall young fair-haired boy in 1940, I often wonder what my role in this monstrous criminal tragedy might have been if Germany had invaded England; after all, I would have been ideal recruitment material for the ‘Hitler Youth’.. . . .

In one sense this poem has taken a long time to write; many times I tried, but it seemed that an extreme event such as this was beyond the reach of poetry.  Then in 2011 I visited the Holocaust Centre, Laxton, Newark with my friend Paul Wojna, a Quaker, who has made the pilgrimage to Auschwitz three times.  With Paul’s helpful encouragement I tried again to write a poem, but this time choosing a simple narrative rhyme about the journey and selection at Auschwitz, never trying to ‘moralise or come to terms’ (whatever that may mean) with this most terrible of all crimes.

So many survivors reported that they heard the last plea from those who perished:  “Remember – do not let the world forget”. Holocaust survivors themselves make this heartfelt plea “Never again”.  .  . . There is a plaque today between crematoria I and II at Auschwitz II – Birkenau with these words in many languages:-

Forever let this place be

A cry of despair

And a warning to humanity.

Where the Nazis murdered

About one and a half million

Men, women and children,

Mainly Jews

From various countries

Of Europe.

Let Lord Sacks the Chief Rabbi have the last word “We cannot change the past, but by remembering it, we might just change the future.”

 Acknowledgement: Yad Vashem, Holocaust Remembrance Authority, Jerusalem.

Pimento Poets: Next Meeting of Pimento Poets: 8th December, 2014…...

Pimento Poets: Next Meeting of Pimento Poets: 8th December, 2014…...: Lincoln.2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Our next time together will be on 8th December at the Pimento Tearooms, Lincoln. Please bring some work with you to read out.

Starting at 10.30 am…...