“The Magna Carta not just an artifact an idea – and as we know ideas are much more dangerous than things.” “It is a bit of a disappointment when you first see it… grubby brown manuscript,” but, he insists, it is much more than that. “It has become a relic in the best sense of the word, in that it represents a whole tradition,” says Justin Champion, professor of history at the University of Holloway. Once the landmark display comes to an end, the visiting versions will be sent home to Salisbury and Lincoln, where they, like the two held permanently by the British Library, will star in individual exhibitions marking the 800th anniversary of the charter, attracting thousands more visitors on a “pilgrimage” to see their own piece of history. Julian Harrison, curator of Medieval manuscripts at the British Library, says it is a miracle the documents have survived – one was badly damaged in a fire in the 18th century, and “The other was reputedly found in a London tailor’s shop in the 17th century – that’s a bit frightening because what was it doing there? Presumably it was going to be cut up to be used to make gentlemen’s collars.” “There’s a great deal we still don’t know about each of their individual histories, but there are things we can learn about them, particularly by comparing them.” “It’s a great opportunity for all four to be looked at, to be compared and contrasted,” said Chris Woods, director of the National Conservation Service. More than 43,000 people from all over the world applied for tickets to the exhibition just 1,215 of them will get the chance to see the quartet of charters over the next three days.Īcademics and Magna Carta experts will also get a unique chance to study the four documents side-by-side, looking at differences in text, handwriting and condition for clues to their past. Nowadays, it is studied in schools from Seattle to Sydney. It wasn’t until his successors revived the Magna Carta in the years after his death that it began to take on such importance. “It was a practical solution to the political crisis the country was in at the time,” explains Breay, a way of bringing to an end a long-running conflict between King John and his barons.Īnd although the monarch signed it – under sufferance – he soon changed his mind and had it annulled by the Pope. “It has become such a powerful symbol over the centuries for all sorts of rights and freedoms.”īut back in 1215, it was effectively a peace treaty. “It really is an iconic document, one of the most famous documents in the world,” says Claire Breay, head of Medieval manuscripts at the British Library. 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 … except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. That key clause – nestled among long-forgotten details about fishing rights and noble widows’ dowries – has become a central tenet of democracies across the globe, from the U.S., whose Constitution and Bill of Rights were directly influenced by the Magna Carta, to Australia, New Zealand and India. Today, the Magna Carta is revered around the world as the document that established the principle that everyone – including the King himself – was subject to the rule of law.

entered the war it was not safe in Washington D.C., and so it went into Fort Knox, and there it was held, with all of the other great treasures of America – and the bullion, obviously – until 1946.”

“It was kept at the Library of Congress for several years, but when the U.S. “It couldn’t travel back across the Atlantic and so the American people took it in. “In 1939, when the war broke out, it was at the World’s Fair in New York,” explains Philip Buckler, Dean of Lincoln Cathedral. “I shudder to think that anybody could have thought that was the right thing to do but … Elsie probably thought she was doing her best.”īy contrast, Lincoln Cathedral’s well-traveled version of the charter, which has just returned from a visit to the United States, is no stranger to such serious levels of surveillance, having spent several years under lock, key and armed guard in Fort Knox. The story goes that she occasionally put it under her bed at home and in order to get it under her bed she put it on the basket of her bicycle,” says Osborne. “The librarian, Elsie, felt very deeply about her responsibility for looking after it.

Magna lock gate