A copy of the Magna Carta in the Harvard Law School Library that was bought for $27.50 in 1946 has been identified as one of only seven known originals of King Edward I’s Magna Carta from 1300. This also makes it only the second original Magna Carta in the United States.
The discovery was made by David Carpenter, professor of medieval history at King’s College London. He was looking through the library’s online catalogue looking for unofficial copies of Magna Carta for a book he was working on when he came across document HLS MS 172, labelled an unofficial copy from 1327. Carpenter saw details in the digitized images that made him suspect it was not a copy, but one of the official originals issued by Edward I.
The Magna Carta was first issued in 1215 as a check on the power of the English monarch. A group of rebellious barons forced King John to sign it, establishing fundamental rights such as due process and habeas corpus, a legal concept that guarantees freedom from illegal imprisonment. It later inspired foundational legal documents, including the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Throughout the thirteenth century, subsequent kings reissued the Magna Carta several times—events known as “confirmations.” When King Edward I reissued the Magna Carta in 1300, clerks produced “well over 30” copies to distribute around the country, Carpenter says.
Carpenter sent the images to Nicholas Vincent, professor of medieval history at the University of East Anglia, and Vincent agreed with him that this looked like the real deal.
The two professors recognized several signs: the handwriting and size of the parchment—about 19-by-19 inches—were strikingly similar to those of the other official Magna Cartas from 1300. And most tellingly, the text stated that the document was issued in “the 28th year of Edward’s reign”—which dates it squarely to 1300. […]
After Vincent contacted Harvard, the two scholars started a process to confirm their suspicions. Carpenter collated the six other known 1300 confirmations and found that this version was strikingly specific: clerks at the time had been instructed to meticulously replicate particular changes in diction and word order. This provided a test for HLS MS 127: if it was indeed a 1300 confirmation, its text would need to match the others.
The text, however, was too faded to read clearly, so Harvard enlisted the company R.B. Toth Associates, which specializes in digital research technologies, to use ultraviolet light and spectral imaging to reveal the invisible writing. Once Carpenter received those images, he compared them to the confirmed authentic text.
The scholars then set out to trace the document’s ownership history, and boy is it extraordinary. Harvard had acquired it in 1946 from London book dealers Sweet & Maxwell. The book dealers had bought it a year earlier at a Sotheby’s auction, put under the hammer by World War I flying ace, Air Vice-Marshal Forster “Sammy” Maynard. It turns out that Maynard had inherited it from the estate of Thomas Clarkson, the famous abolitionist who was instrumental in achieving the passage of the bill that ended Britain’s slave trade. Clarkson had received it from the Lowther family of baronets.
Carpenter and Vincent believe this particular official copy was issued to the former parliamentary borough of Appleby in Cumbria in 1300. It was last documented in Appleby in 1762. They weren’t able to pinpoint how it left Appleby and got into Lowther hands.
The document is in fragile condition and is currently kept in a vault for its protection. Harvard Law School librarians are planning to display their Magna Carta during an even with faculty in June, but there are no current plans to exhibit it to the public.