Harvard’s Forgotten Stained Document Holds a Shocking Secret: An Original 1300 Magna Carta Unveiled After Decades
As the Magna Carta established foundational principles of law and due process, it inspired the development of constitutional law in England. Naturally, it also heavily influenced foundational documents like the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It’s little wonder why the document is still so fascinating to historians in the modern age.
Professor David Carpenter just so happened to be one of those scholars deeply fascinated by the Magna Carta. So, as he was studying unofficial copies of this document, he came across the digitized version of the one belonging to Harvard, dubbed HLS MS 172.
That’s when he made his remarkable discovery.
Researchers Identify Harvard’s Magna Carta As An Original From 1300
M.B. Toth/R.B. Toth AssociatesThe Harvard Magna Carta being prepared for multispectral imaging.
Comparing the digitized HLS MS 172 with other originals, Carpenter quickly began to suspect that he was not looking at a replica. He contacted Professor Nicholas Vincent, another medieval history professor at the University of East Anglia, to help with his investigation.
When Harvard University acquired the document in 1946, it was told that the alleged copy had been dated to 1327 — still quite old, but given how many copies of the document exist, nothing all that special. But Carpenter and Vincent said they both immediately recognized that HLS MS 172 was no mere copy.
“The instant I saw it, I knew!” Vincent told The Washington Post. “Everything about the document looked right. The layout, the text, the handwriting, and the large capital E for Edwardus.”
