Parliamentary Medievalism: The Australian Magna Carta as Secular Relic

Abstract

'This essay explores the ongoing importance of this medieval text, Magna Carta, as a powerful legimitating symbol of parliamentary democracy, and an example of institutional medievalism in the Australian federal parliament. The manuscript itself is presented and venerated as a secular relic of a distant past, its dark organic surface and almost indecipherable script offering a dramatic contrast with the modern light and airy spaces of Mitchell, Giurgula and Thorpe's Parliament House. But the relationship between modern parliaments and their medieval antecedents is not always a stable one, not always reducible either to dramatic contrasts or easy continuities.'

The full text of this essay is available to ALS subscribers

Please sign in to access this article and the rest of our archive.

Published 1 November 2011 in Volume 26 No. 3-4. Subjects: Australian politics, Medievalism.

Cite as: Trigg, Stephanie. ‘Parliamentary Medievalism: The Australian Magna Carta as Secular Relic.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 26, no. 3-4, 2011, doi: 10.20314/als.65cfd92aaa.