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Why did Pope Innocent III reject the Magna Carta agreement?
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Magna Carta
Opening of the preamble to Magna Carta of 1215; in the British Library (Cotton MS Augustus II 106).
Pope Innocent III rejected the Magna Carta primarily because King John had become a papal vassal in 1213, placing his kingdom under the protection of the papacy.1
By surrendering England to the Pope and receiving it back as a fief, John secured the papacy as a firm ally in his struggles against his own baronage. When the barons forced John to accept the Magna Carta at Runnymede in June 1215, the king appealed to Innocent III to intervene. Viewing the charter as an infringement on the rights of his vassal and an affront to royal authority, the Pope took the king’s side and released John from his obligations under the agreement, effectively rendering it unworkable and leading to the outbreak of civil war.123