The BBC News website and that of the Daily Telegraph both report today about the re-identification of a copy of the 1300 Magna Carta as being one of the Chancery originals, and not, as had been thought since the 1940s at least, an inferior copy made about 1325.
The document was bought for £7 in 1946, by the Harvard Law School - Americans get very excited about Magna Carta - but is thought to originate from Westmorland as the Sheriff’s copy of the re-issue by King Edward I.
Close textual examination of the manuscript revealed it was by the same hand, and included the same variations, as other surviving examples from the 1300 re-issue. The identification is the work of two of our preeminent historians of the thirteenth century, David Carpenter and Nicholas Vincent.
The BBC article can be seen at Harvard cut-price Magna Carta 'copy' now believed genuine
The Daily Telegraph account can be viewed at Harvard’s $27 copy of Magna Carta revealed to be $21m original
In addition the Daily Telegraph has an entertaining opinion piece by another very distinguished thirteenth century historian, David Abulafia, about the identification, although he appears to have missed the point that this copy has been shown to be from the 1300 reissue along with other copies of the text, rather than, as had been thought hitherto, from about 1327. His article can be read at Has Harvard actually found the Magna Carta?
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