Harvards cheap copy of Magna Carta turns out to be extremely rare 13th-century royal document

Harvard University for decades assumed it had a cheap copy of the Magna Carta in its collection, a stained and faded document it had purchased for less than $30.But two researchers have concluded it has something much more valuable — a rare version from 1300 issued by Britain’s King Edward I.The original Magna Carta established in 1215 the principle that the king is subject to law, and it has formed the basis of constitutions globally.There are four copies of the original and, until now, there were believed to be only six copies of the 1300 version.“My reaction was one of amazement and, in a way, awe that I should have managed to find a previously unknown Magna Carta,” said David Carpenter, a professor of medieval history at King’s College London.

He was searching the Harvard Law School Library website in December 2023 when he found the digitized document.“First, I’d found one of the most rare documents and most significant documents in world constitutional history,” Carpenter said.“But secondly, of course, it was astonishment that Harvard had been sitting on it for all these years without realizing what it was.”Carpenter teamed up with Nicholas Vincent, a professor of medieval history at Britain’s University of East Anglia, to confirm the authenticity of Harvard’s document.Comparing it to the other six copies from 1300, Carpenter found the dimensions matched up.

He and Vincent then turned to images Harvard librarians created using ultraviolet light and spectral imaging.The technology helps scholars see details on faded documents that are not visible to the human eye.That allowed them to compare the texts word-for-word, as well as the handwriting, which include a large capital ‘E’ at the start in ‘Edwardus’ and elongated letters in the first line.After the 1215 original printed by King John, five other editions were written in the following decades — until 1300, the last time the full document was set out and authorized by the...