An ‘unofficial’ copy of the Magna Carta, the iconic 13th-century document, at Harvard was concluded to be an authentic surviving copy.
The discovery was made by David Carpenter, who is a professor of medieval history at King’s College London. He examined the document during his quest to explore all the ‘unofficial’ copies of the document. Upon looking at the document at Harvard, he “immediately thought: my god this looks for all the world like an original of Edward I’s confirmation of Magna Carta in 1300, though of course appearances are deceptive.” Carpenter, along with Nicholas Vincent – another professor of medieval history – examined the document via various tests, including spectral imaging. However, the final conclusion was drawn from the handwriting itself: “One extraordinary little detail about the handwriting is the initial E at the start of Edwardus. The next letter—the D—of Edwardus is also a capital, which is quite unusual. And yet you find that capital D in one of the other six originals.”
The Magna Carta is one of the most important documents not just in English history but in the history of the world. Signed in 1215 by King John I at the behest of the Pope, the document sought to establish that the monarch was not divine and was not above the law of the land. While the document failed to broker peace and a civil war still broke out, subsequent kings continued to reissue the Magna Carta (with some changes). Eventually, the document enshrined the fact that the king could not mete out punishment outside the law, and dictated how justice was meted out.
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The document at Harvard came from the Magna Carta issued by King Edward I in 1300. It is not one of the seven surviving copies of that particular version. Vincent further shed light that the document passed from the aristocratic Lowthers to abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, then to a RAF pilot, and then to a bookstore in London before finally being sold to Harvard in 1946.
