A Magna Carta classified by Harvard as an unofficial copy for almost 80 years has been declared as an original issued by Edward I from 1300, the university has announced. The discovery means that there are now seven surviving copies of the first document to effectively establish that no English monarch was above the law.
According to The Guardian, the discovery was made by David Carpenter, a professor of medieval history at King’s College London, who examined the 1327 document via the Harvard law school online library. “I was trawling through all these online statute books trying to find unofficial copies of the Magna Carta,” he said, adding that 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.”
Together with Nicholas Vincent, a professor of medieval history at the University of East Anglia, Carpenter tested the document for authenticity using, among other tools, spectral imaging and ultraviolet light. The key, Vincent told the Guardian, was in the handwriting: “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 acted as a royal charter of rights and was first issued in 1215 by King John to make peace with a group of rebellious barons. The original charter failed to appease the rebellion, and England plunged into civil war. But its tenets endured, at least in some iteration: Subsequent reissues of the charter ultimately enshrined in law protections against illegal arrests and seizures of property, swift, judicial process, and a limit on taxation—all of which would be leveraged as justification for the American Revolution.
Carpenter called Harvard’s copy “one of the world’s most valuable documents.”
He added: “It asserts a fundamental principle that the ruler is subject to the law. He can’t just say: ‘Into prison, off with your head, I’m seizing your property.’ If he wants to act against you, he has to do so by legal process. It’s the foundation stone of the western tradition of law and democracy.” Within the history of Magna Carta, the 1300 confirmation by Edward I holds particular importance, as it was the final and most authoritative official reissue.
Harvard’s online library notes that the document was bought $27.50 in 1946 and had previously been sold by a member of the Royal Air Force (RAF) to the London book dealers Sweet & Maxwell for £42. Carpenter and Vincent said the copy likely was issued to the former parliamentary borough of Appleby in Cumbria and passed down to the Lowthers, an aristocratic family prominent in the 18th century, who then passed it down to Thomas Clarkson, an abolitionist. From there, through Clarkson’s estate, it was acquired by Forster Maynard.
Vincent said: “It was then passed down through an evil aristocratic family of the 18th century, the Lowthers, who then gave it to Thomas Clarkson, who was the leading slavery abolitionist. And then, through Clarkson’s estate, it went to this fellow, Forster Maynard, an RAF commander and the first flying ace of World War I.”
It’s unclear as to why Harvard’s copy was classified for nearly a century as unofficial. “Everyone in 1945 was a bit tired,” Vincent said.