15 June—Today is the 809^th anniversary of the Magna Carta Libertatum, the Great Charter of Freedoms, commonly referred to without the definite article and the Freedoms limitation—because Latin has no definite articles and the freedoms are questionable—as Magna Carta.

Magna Carta was drafted by Cardinal Stephen Langton, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury in 1215 (because there were no Protestants at the time) as a strategy to preempt a revolt and make peace between the autocratic albeit weak and unpopular King John and a group of 40 rebellious barons who were really no better. No surprise that King John didn’t accept with alacrity the terms of what’s regarded as Europe’s first written constitution.

Of course, Magna Carta was written in Latin. English nobles tended to be somewhat better educated and more literate—but not necessarily more intelligent—than most commoners (i.e., peasants) in the thirteenth century. That’s the case to this day. The nobles and royals spoke French but not necessarily Latin or English, while the commoners (i.e., peasants) spoke English but probably not Latin or French. That’s the way the church and nobles liked it. Thus, it’s doubtful that all the barons were actually able to read and/or understand what they were signing and forcing on the king.

That’s like legislators voting on—usually in favor of—bills without understanding or even bothering to read them. Especially long bills like budget implementers in the Connecticut General Assembly that are cornucopias of all sorts of surprises, rushed through in the closing minutes of a session.

Simply put, then, among the thousands of words detailing feudal and legal stuff (to use the generic historical term) Magna Carta stated that the king had to obey the law (like everybody else except you know who and other special people) and that even most common people (i.e., peasants) had certain—albeit limited—rights.

Magna Carta promised to protect the church’s rights (a sine qua non in the bad old days, carried through to the U.S. Constitution, thanks to which those rights are still abused), protected the nobles (the only people who really mattered) from illegal imprisonment, and provided for access to relatively swift justice. It also guaranteed other silly populist nonsense like no taxation without representation. Yeah, right.

Magna Carta stated (but didn’t guarantee) that there could be no punishment without lawful trial and conviction and protected the rights of women and children who inherited property. It also gave the lords the right to declare war on the king if he didn’t abide by the terms of the contract. That provision was supposed to be implemented through a council of 25 barons in what was essentially a non-legislative form of impeachment.

To no one’s surprise, neither King John nor the barons stood by their signed and sealed contractual commitments. Politics as usual. And, frankly, constitutions and laws in general tend to be honored as much in their breach as in their observation.

Not quite as stupid or weak as he may have acted and been characterized in popular literature, King John was able, a couple of months later, to bribe Pope Innocent III, the capo di tutti capi in Rome, who was Canterbury’s boss at the time, to annul Magna Carta—on the (perfectly legitimate) ground that John had signed and sealed it only under duress. Predictably, that led to the First Barons’ War. And Magna Carta was amended—really reissued and otherwise fiddled with—in 1216, 1217, and 1225. Not that any of it made much difference.

Both King John and Pope Innocent III died in 1216. But the barons lingered on to finish their first war and a second one half a century later, against Henry III.

Even though it may have been an inspiration for the U.S. Constitution (through the Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, which facetiously calls itself the Constitution State), Magna Carta’s significance and influence tend to be overstated by historians and commentators. And only four of its 63 original clauses are valid today.

More to the point, contrary to the etymology presented in the Mel Brooks historic epic “Robin Hood: Men in Tights,” King John, terrible monarch and despicable person though he may have been, did not—repeat, did not—give his name to toilets. Don’t laugh. Okay, laugh. But it was over two decades ago that a serious website about history and language actually presented that delightful albeit specious etymology as a fact.

If it’s on the internet, it has to be true even though it often isn’t. In all events, that website got flushed down the john long ago. And on the subject of toilets, yesterday was Donald Trump’s 78^th birthday . . .