Literary scholar Elaine Treharne painstakingly examined every letter and punctuation mark of the Salisbury Magna Carta in making her discovery about the document's origin. Credit: L.A. Cicero
Posted on 09/04/2015 2:06:01 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Eight hundred years ago, one of the world's most important documents was born. Issued by King John of England in 1215, the Magna Carta ("Great Charter") acknowledged the rights of citizens and set restrictions on the power of the king. The Magna Carta has influenced the structures of modern democracies, including the writ of habeas corpus of the U.S. Constitution...
According to Treharne, her research suggests the Salisbury Magna Carta was not just received and preserved at Salisbury, but that the Salisbury Magna Carta was written at Salisbury by one of the cathedral's own scribes. She recently co-published her findings with University of Glasgow historian Andrew Prescott...
Instead of the charter being something passive that the king produced and sent out from the central court to be put away in satellite locations, Treharne says versions of the charter "were written in the regions and then taken to the court for sealing by the king's Great Seal."
...
Treharne made the unexpected discovery while working on a larger project profiling the rich archive of Salisbury Cathedral. She was analyzing texts in a book that belonged to Salisbury in about 1215 or 1220 when she noticed "that a couple of the scribes' work in that book looked very similar to that of the Magna Carta scribe."
In particular, she noted similarities in the handwriting of the Salisbury Magna Carta and a document called the Register of St. Osmund, which contains regulations, charters, writs and other documents pertaining to the cathedral.
The archive at Salisbury has not been digitized, so Treharne has been traveling there from Stanford for several years to examine the documents firsthand.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Literary scholar Elaine Treharne painstakingly examined every letter and punctuation mark of the Salisbury Magna Carta in making her discovery about the document's origin. Credit: L.A. Cicero
...the Salisbury Magna Carta was written at Salisbury by one of the cathedral's own scribes.
Probably a transgender.
Yeah, a burning stake for revisionism. ;-)
Oooh, that was bad.
It makes sense that there was at least one copy made at Salisbury. One of the guarantors who signed the document was William Longspee, half-brother to King John, bastard son of Henry II by Ida de Toeni.
This is interesting.
I agree! OTOH, I had someone drop off the group because of it, so...
If the Salisbury copy (one of only four surviving) was produced in Salisbury, it stands to reason that it is not a Base or Generation Zero document but is a Generation One copy of the original. It seems probable that one of the original copies produced at the time of the Magna Carta’s signing in 1215 was being circulated and each authority wanting a copy had to produce its own copy by having a scribe transcribe it. Then, as a means of quality control, it was sent to the King for affixing of the Great Seal was a way for both sides to certify that the copy was a true copy of the original document.
This is a efficient and economical means of laying off the significant cost of producing the handwritten copy on those who wanted one but at the same time ensuring it would be accepted by both the owner and the Crown as a true copy for present and future reference. I image there was probably a hefty fee associated with obtaining the Great Seal on the document.
By the way, except for the Great Seal quality control bit, hand copying of important documents and books was the standard way (prior to the printing press) in which scholars in both the West and the East built their personal libraries.
Among the Chinese, it was also the practice to interlace the document’s text with their own commentary on it. Maddening to disentangle at times to obtain the original text without distracting asides, etc.
Saw his tomb in the great cathdral
Salisbury is breathtaking
But they still can’t tell us who wrote the fake Vince Foster suicide note.
Hope to make it there someday. He is a distant ancestor.
That’s one corpus no one wants to habeas.
London Walks runs a one day trip by express rail and bus to Salisbury and Stonehenge. Very reasonable and obviously takes you to spectacular sights.
Sounds great!
http://www.google.com/search?q=monuments+of+wiltshire&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&tbm=isch
http://www.touristnetuk.com/southern-england/wiltshire/attractions/heritage/castles.asp
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