Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ON SUICIDE - Arthur Schopenhauer.
Oriental. Greek. Theism. Negative vs Positive liberty. The Text of Magna Carta. As might be expected, the text of the Magna Carta of 1215 bears many traces of haste, and is clearly the product of much bargaining and many hands. Most of its clauses deal with specific, and often long-standing, grievances rather than with general principles of law. Some of the grievances are self-explanatory: others can be understood only in the context of the feudal society in which they arose.
Of a few clauses, the precise meaning is still a matter of argument. In feudal society, the king's barons held their lands `in fee' ( feudum ) from the king, for an oath to him of loyalty and obedience, and with the obligation to provide him with a fixed number of knights whenever these were required for military service. At first the barons provided the knights by dividing their estates (of which the largest and most important were known as `honours') into smaller parcels described as `knights' fees', which they distributed to tenants able to serve as knights.