V. And for so much as divers people of our realm are in fear that the aids and tasks which they have given to us beforetime towards our wars and other business, of their own grant and goodwill, howsoever they were made, might turn to a bondage to them and their heirs, because they might be at another time found in the rolls, and so likewise the prises taken throughout the realm by our ministers; we have granted for us and our heirs, that we shall not draw such aids, tasks, nor prises into a custom, for anything that hath been done heretofore, or that may be found by roll or in any other manner.

VI.  Moreover we have granted for us and our heirs, as well to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of holy Church, as also to earls, barons, and to all the commonalty of the land, that for no business from henceforth will we take such manner of aids, tasks, nor prises but by the common consent of the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed.

VII.  And for so much as the more part of the commonalty of the realm find themselves sore grieved with the matelote of wools, that is to wit, a toll of forty shillings for every sack of wool, and have made petition to us to release the same; we, at their requests, have clearly released it, and have granted for us and our heirs that we shall not take such thing nor any other without their common assent and goodwill; saving to us and our heirs the custom of wools, skins, and leather, granted before by the commonalty aforesaid.  In witness of which things we have caused these our letters to be made patents.  Witness Edward our son, at London, the 10th day of October, the five-and-twentieth of our reign.

And be it remembered that this same Charter, in the same terms, word for word, was sealed in Flanders under the King’s Great Seal, that is to say, at Ghent, the 5th day of November, in the 52th year of the reign of our aforesaid Lord the King, and sent into England.

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The words of this important document, from Professor Stubbs’s translation, are given as the best explanation of the constitutional position and importance of the Charters of John and Henry III.  See historical notice in Stubbs’s Documents Illustrative of English History, p. 477.  This is far the most important of the numerous ratifications of the Great Charter.  Hallam calls it “that famous statute, inadequately denominated the Confirmation of the Charters, because it added another pillar to our constitution, not less important than the Great Charter itself.”  It solemnly confirmed the two Charters, the Charter of the Forest (issued by Henry II. in 1217—­see text in Stubbs, p. 338) being then considered as of equal importance with Magna Charta itself, establishing them in all points as the law of the land; but it did more.  “Hitherto the king’s prerogative of levying money by name of tallage or prise, from his towns and