Harvard Law paid $36 for a copy of the Magna Carta. Surprise! It's an original

Straits Times

15-05-2025

A 'copy' of the Magna Carta owned by Harvard Law School was, in fact, an extraordinarily rare original from 1300. PHOTO: LORIN GRANGER/NYTIMES
LONDON – Bought for US$27.50 (S$35.70) after World War II, the faint, water-stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946.
That is about to change.
Two British academics, one of whom saw the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version – not a copy, as long thought – of the Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world's most cherished liberties.
It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.
'I never in all my life expected to discover a Magna Carta,' said Professor David Carpenter, who teaches mediaeval history at King's College London, describing the moment in December 2023 when he made the startling find.
The manuscript's value is hard to estimate, although it is fair to say that its price tag of under US$30 (about US$500 today) must make it one of the bargains of the last century. A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for US$21.3 million.
Professor Nicholas Vincent, of the University of East Anglia, in eastern England, helped authenticate the text. He noted that the document, which bound Britain's rulers to acting within the law, resurfaced at a time when Harvard has come under extraordinary pressure from the Trump administration.
'In this particular instance, we are dealing with an institution that is under direct attack from the state itself, so it's almost providential it has turned up where it has at this particular time,' he said.
'You and I both know what that is!'
Providential or not, the discovery happened largely by chance.
Prof Carpenter was at home in Blackheath, south-east London, ploughing his way through Harvard Law School's digital images as research for a book when he opened a file named HLS MS 172, the catalogue name for Harvard Law School Manuscript 172.
'I get down to 172 and it's a single parchment sheet of Magna Carta,' he said. 'And I think, 'Oh my God, this looks to me for all the world – because I read it – like an original'.'
Prof Carpenter e-mailed Prof Vincent, who was, at the time, at work in a library in Brussels.
'David sent it with a message saying, 'What do you think that is?'' said Prof Vincent. 'I wrote back within seconds, saying, 'You and I both know what that is!''
The two academics were able to confirm the manuscript's authenticity after Harvard Law School photographed it under ultraviolet light and then subjected it to various levels of spectral imaging, a technique that can enhance aspects of historical documents undetectable to the human eye.
Comparing it with six previously known originals from 1300, the professors found that the text matched, as did the dimensions: 489 mm x 473 mm. The handwriting used in the manuscript, with a large capital 'E' at the start in 'Edwardus' and elongated letters in the first line, also tallied.
'It's the best sort of thing that can happen to a librarian,' said Ms Amanda Watson, assistant dean at Harvard Law School's library. 'This is our daily work to digitalise things, to preserve things, to save things, to open things up for people like David Carpenter.'
Ms Watson said the document itself had sometimes been put on display, but, as part of a large collection, it was not kept out permanently.
The library has yet to decide whether it will now be made available to the public, but Ms Watson said she 'can't imagine' that it would be sold.
'In the United States, having things that are 700 years old is special,' added Professor Jonathan Zittrain, chair of the Harvard Law School library.
The Magna Carta resurfaced at a time when Harvard has come under extraordinary pressure from the Trump administration.
PHOTO: REUTERS
'The law of the land'
The Magna Carta – 'Great Charter' in Latin – has been used to justify many different causes over the centuries, sometimes on shaky historical ground.
But it has evolved into a global symbol of the importance of fundamental freedoms, including habeas corpus. By limiting the power of the monarch, it came to represent the right to protection against arbitrary and unjust rule.
One of its most famous passages states: 'No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.'
First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England – or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore.
He later revoked the charter, but his son, King Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and King Henry's son, King Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.
A researcher analyses photographs of the Magna Carta, a medieval text held in the Harvard Law School library for 80 years.
PHOTO: DEBORA MAYER/NYTIMES
The document influenced the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights includes several provisions that are thought to descend from the Magna Carta.
There are 25 original manuscripts of the Magna Carta in all, produced at various times. Including the one at Harvard, only three are outside Britain.
Harvard Law School bought its version from a London legal book dealer, Sweet & Maxwell, which in turn purchased the manuscript in December 1945 from Sotheby's, the auctioneers.
In the 1945 auction catalogue, it was listed as a copy and with the wrong date (1327) and was sold for £42 (S$72) – about a fifth of the average annual income in Britain at the time – on behalf of Air Vice-Marshal Forster Maynard, who served as a fighter pilot in World War I.
Air Vice-Marshal Maynard inherited it from the family of Thomas and John Clarkson, who were leading campaigners in Britain against the slave trade from the 1780s onward.
Prof Vincent believes the document could be a lost Magna Carta that was once issued to the former parliamentary borough of Appleby-in-Westmorland, in the north of England, and which was last mentioned in print in 1762.
While undoubtedly famous, many Britons seem to have a hazy knowledge of the document. Former prime minister David Cameron was famously unable to translate the term Magna Carta when asked by David Letterman on his late-night talk show in 2012.
But few doubt its significance in the evolution of Western notions of rights and freedoms. With some of those now more under threat, Prof Vincent said the discovery at Harvard was timely.
The Magna Carta, he said, places the king under the rule of law.
The 'head of state cannot simply go against somebody because he doesn't like them. He has to do it using the law,' he said.
The text of the charter is incorporated within 17 state constitutions of the United States, he added, 'so there is more of it in American state law than there is in the UK.' NYTIMES
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