Harvard Law School’s ‘copy’ of Magna Carta revealed as original
By: Communications
British researchers have discovered that a ‘copy’ of Magna Carta owned by Harvard Law School is in fact an extraordinarily rare original from 1300.
The discovery by leading Magna Carta experts from King’s College London and UEA means the document, which Harvard Law School acquired in the 1940s, is just one of seven from King Edward I’s 1300 issue of Magna Carta that still survive.
Considered a key step in the evolution of human rights against oppressive rulers, Magna Carta has formed the basis of constitutions around the world. It was influential in the founding of the United States, from the Declaration of Independence to the framing of the US Constitution and the subsequent adoption of the Bill of Rights.
The Harvard Law School Library bought the document known as ‘HLS MS 172’ in 1946 for a sum of $27.50, according to the library’s accession register. The auction catalogue described the manuscript as a “copy…made in 1327…somewhat rubbed and damp-stained”. It had been purchased a month or so earlier by the London bookdealers Sweet & Maxwell, via Sotheby's, from an RAF war hero for a mere £42.
Prof David Carpenter, Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London, describes HLS MS 172 as “a remarkable testament to a fundamental stage in England’s political development” and as “one of the world’s most valuable documents”.
“This is a fantastic discovery,” he said. “Harvard’s Magna Carta deserves celebration, not as some mere copy, stained and faded, but as an original of one of the most significant documents in world constitutional history, a corner stone of freedoms past, present and yet to be won.”
How the discovery happened
Prof Carpenter was studying unofficial copies of Magna Carta when he came across the digitised version of HLS MS 172 on the Harvard Law School Library website and realised it might be an original document and not an unofficial copy. He began to compare it to other originals to establish its authenticity and teamed up with Prof Nicholas Vincent, Professor of Medieval History at UEA, to investigate its provenance.
Prof Vincent, from UEA's School of History and Art History, described Magna Carta as “a totem of liberty, central to our sense of who we are: a freedom-loving, free-born people”.
He added: “It is an icon both of the Western political tradition and of constitutional law. If you asked anybody what the most famous single document in the history of the world is, they would probably name Magna Carta.
“The provenance of this document is just fantastic. Given where it is, given present problems over liberties, over the sense of constitutional tradition in America, you couldn’t invent a provenance that was more wonderful than this.”
“While there are deep benefits to the digital revolution, a physical artifact like this one offers a special and profound reminder of the ways in which the rule of law, and the societies and people it serves, has, in fits and starts, grown and strengthened over a span of centuries," said Jonathan Zittrain, George Bemis Professor of International Law and Harvard Law School’s Vice-Dean for Library and Information Services.
“The work we do in the law, and pass on to new generations of students, is not simply the consistent application of logical principle. It's understanding how rare and precious self-governance across many differences can be, and how important it is to preserve and deliver upon it.”
“Congratulations to Professors Carpenter and Vincent on their fantastic discovery,” said Amanda Watson, Harvard Law School’s Assistant Dean for Library and Information Services. “This work exemplifies what happens when magnificent collections, like Harvard Law Library’s, are opened to brilliant scholars. Behind every scholarly revelation stands the essential work of librarians who not only collect and preserve materials but create pathways that otherwise would remain hidden.”
Authenticating the document
In establishing the authenticity of HLS MS 172, Prof Carpenter and Prof Vincent noted that its dimensions at 489mm x 473mm are consistent with those found in the six previously known originals, as is the handwriting, with the large capital 'E' at the start in 'Edwardus' and the elongated letters in the first line.
They also collated the seven originals with one another and discovered that a new text of Magna Carta had been prepared, with the clerks being given strict instructions to stick to it. This set a high bar for HLS MS 172 because if its text varied from the authorised version, it would not be genuine.
Using images obtained by Harvard Law School librarians via ultraviolet light and spectral imaging, Prof Carpenter and Prof Vincent discovered that HLS MS 172 passed the test “with flying colours”, with its text matching up perfectly with that in the other originals.
“This uniformity provides new evidence for Magna Carta's status in the eyes of contemporaries,” explained Prof Carpenter. “The text had to be correct.”
Read more: The mystery of Magna Carta
A lost manuscript
Tracing HLS MS 172’s journey to the US, Carpenter and Vincent believe the document could be a lost Magna Carta once issued to the former parliamentary borough of Appleby in Westmorland, England.
They reveal that the manuscript was sent to auction in 1945 by the First World War flying ace, Air Vice-Marshal Forster ‘Sammy’ Maynard CB. Forster Maynard, it emerges, inherited archives from Thomas and John Clarkson, leading campaigners against the slave trade from the 1780s onwards.
In the early 1800s Clarkson retired to the English Lake District, where he became a friend both of English poet William Wordsworth, and of local landowner, William Lowther, in effect joint lord of the manor of Appleby.
From Appleby via the Lowthers, the Clarksons and Forster Maynard, Harvard's Magna Carta has followed an extraordinary route, with the cause both of liberty and of slavery's abolition at the very heart of that journey.
Find out more: The Magna Carta Project
What is Magna Carta and why are there different versions?
Magna Carta, Latin for ‘great’ or ‘large’ charter, was first issued by King John in 1215. John revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, which became the statutory version. John’s grandson, Edward I, confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.
Official engrossments of the confirmed version were sent out in 1300 for promulgation in local assemblies. It is one of the seven known of those 1300 original Magna Cartas that the Harvard Law Library is now believed to hold.
Magna Carta served for centuries both as a symbol of resistance against tyranny and as practical law. Today there is little practical law in it, but clause 29 of the 1225 charter remains on the statute books in England, and its larger concept of ‘due process’ is found in every country with a legal system derived from the English, including the United States.
The 1300 confirmation was more authoritative than that of 1297 and was the last time that in any confirmation the full text of Magna Carta was set out, making it, in a way, the last edition of Magna Carta.
How many Magna Cartas are believed to be in existence?
It is estimated that between 1215-1300 the royal chancery issued more than 200 individual single sheet parchment originals under the royal seal – the majority of which have been lost. There are six surviving originals of the 1300 issue still preserved in the UK, five of which are intact and held at: 1) London, Metropolitan Archives, Corporation of London; 2) Durham, University Library Special Collections Durham Cathedral Muniments; 3) Oxford, Oriel College Archives; 4) Faversham, Faversham Borough Archives; 5) Westminster Abbey. The sixth is now in two fragments and held at Sandwich Borough Museum.
In total, there are only 25 original Magna Cartas (including HLS MS 172), of which all but three are now in UK institutional collections. For comparison, of all painters, work by Johannes Vermeer is among the most rare, with 36 paintings known to survive.
What version does Harvard Law School (HLS) possess?
The document, HLS MS 172, is King Edward I's 1300 confirmation of the 1225 Charter as issued by his father, Henry III.
How did HLS come to own the document?
London legal book dealer Sweet & Maxwell sold the document to Harvard in early 1946 for $27.50, having bought the manuscript at Sotheby’s in December 1945, where it was auctioned on behalf of Air Vice-Marshal Forster Maynard for £42 (hammer price). Before that, it is believed HLS MS 172 was likely the original in the possession of the Borough of Appleby in Westmoreland, last mentioned in the second edition of Blackstone’s commentary on Magna Carta in 1762.
What did HLS believe the document was?
Unofficial copies of the Charter are found in chronicles, registers and in statute books - collections of legislation made for lawyers. Of those, many were acquired by HLS at auction in the last century. The version in question, HLS MS 172, had been listed in the 1945 auction catalogue as a copy and with the wrong date (1327).
Who are David Carpenter and Nicholas Vincent?
David Carpenter is Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London’s Faculty of Arts & Humanities. He is currently working on finding copies made of the 1215 charter during the rest of the 13th century, collecting unofficial copies of all the versions from 1215-1300.
Carpenter has found many rival versions of clauses proposed but ultimately rejected during the negotiations at Runnymede, casting a new light both on those negotiations and on what the political community knew about Magna Carta in the 13th century.
Nicholas Vincent is a Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia’s School of History and Art History. He has published 25 books and some 150 academic articles on various aspects of English and European history in the 12th and 13th centuries, including a 2015 book on the origins and legacy of Magna Carta.
In 2015 Vincent and Carpenter collaborated on the The Magna Carta Project, a landmark investigation of Magna Carta 1215 to mark the charter’s 800th anniversary, providing resources and commentary on the charter and King John. This included the discovery of a new original Magna Carta in Kent, which Vincent authenticated.
How did they determine the document was an original from 1300?
Beginning in 2015, the Harvard Law School Library undertook a multi-year project to digitize its bound manuscript collection of some 30 Magna Carta and English statute compilations, and registers of writs, making them available to the world to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta.
Carpenter was working through the HLS collection via these digitised copies when he came to HLS MS 172 and immediately suspected it was an original of 1300.
HLS MS 172 was then photographed under ultra-violet light and subjected to various levels of spectral imaging. Carpenter looked at the form, hand and content of the Charter. Vincent delved into its provenance. They also used photos of the six originals and another copy to check the document word for word and found it matched almost exactly with official texts.
They observed that the first line with elongated letters and a large capital E was consistent with the six other originals of Magna Carta 1300.
What is significant about this discovery?
Surviving copies are extremely rare. Before the recent discovery, only six originals of this 1300 confirmation were known to survive. Of Edward's confirmation three years earlier in 1297, there are four.
Research by Carpenter and Vincent has shown that a new text was prepared for the Edwardian confirmation with the clerks given strict instructions to stick to the original text to ensure it was correct, reflecting the Charter’s status by 1300.
Why is Magna Carta so important to the United States?
Magna Carta was influential in the founding of the United States, from the Declaration of Independence to the framing of the US Constitution and the adoption of the Bill of Rights.
It is seen as the foundation stone of liberty in the Anglo-American legal tradition, because it places the Crown under a degree of responsibility to obey the law. The idea of the observation of the rule of law is central to the Western tradition of democracy.
To date, only two original Magna Cartas, one in Washington, DC, the other in Canberra, Australia, are known to survive outside the British Isles.
How can people view the Magna Carta held by Harvard Law School?
HLS MS 172 and the entire group of early bound manuscripts is available online via HOLLIS, the Harvard Library online catalog. View the collection of manuscript Magna Cartas and early English statues, ca. 1300-1577.
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