Did the 1297 Magna Carta replace the 1215 Magna Carta?

Answer 1

The document commonly known as Magna Carta today is not the 1215 charter, but a later charter of 1225, and is usually shown in the form of The Charter of 1297 when it was confirmed by Edward I. At the time of the 1215 charter many of the provisions were not meant to make long term changes but simply to right the immediate wrongs, and therefore The Charter was reissued three times in the reign of Henry III (1216, 1217 and 1225) in order to provide for an updated version. After this each individual king for the next two hundred years (Until Henry V in 1416) personally confirmed the 1225 charter in their own charter, so one must not think of it as one document but a variety of documents coming together to form one Magna Carta in the same way many treaties such as the treaties of Rome and Nice come together to form the Treaties of the European Union and the European Community.

The document is also honored in America as some view it as an antecedent of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. The United States has contributed the Runnymede Memorial and Lincoln Cathedral offers a Magna Carta USA week [1]. The UK lent one of the four remaining copies of Magna Carta to the U.S. for its bicentennial celebrations and donated a gold copy which is displayed in the U.S. Capital Rotunda.[2]