Harvard’s $27.50 Magna Carta Is An Original

Cambridge, Massachusetts —(Map)

Librarians at Harvard Law School have learned that they own an original version of one of the world’s most important documents – the Magna Carta. Until recently, Harvard thought that the document, which it bought for just $27.50, was a copy. Instead, It’s a valuable historical document worth millions of dollars.

The Magna Carta, or “Great Charter of Freedoms”, is one of the most important documents in history. It was written in 1215 to limit the powers of King John of England. The Magna Carta was meant to protect people from the king’s unfair actions. It was one of the first documents to make clear that even kings must follow the laws.

The Magna Carta has also played an important part in democracies all around the world, with many important documents building upon the ideas in the Magna Carta. In the United States, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are two examples of such documents.

These days, there are only about 25 remaining versions of the original Magna Carta. These handwritten documents were officially put out by the King of England – at first by King John, and later by his son, and then his grandson.

But since the Magna Carta was such an important document, very many copies were made. And for a long time, that’s what people thought Harvard’s document was – a copy made in 1327. In fact, the document was simply labeled “HLS MS 172″*.

But in December of 2023, Professor David Carpenter was looking through images of Harvard’s documents online. Professor Carpenter teaches history of the Middle Ages at King’s College in London. Professor Carpenter says that when he first looked at HLS MS 172, he thought, “Oh my god, this looks…like an original.”

He quickly contacted another professor, Nicholas Vincent, who’s also an expert in the time period. “The instant I saw it, I knew,” said Professor Vincent. “Everything about the document looked right.”

After the professors got in touch with the library, experts at Harvard ran special tests on the document. The tests confirmed that it was an original Magna Carta. The document was written by hand on sheepskin in the year 1300. That makes it 725 years old, but it’s still in good condition.

The two professors carefully compared the newly-found Magna Carta to six others that were created in 1300, and the documents matched up, word for word.

The newly-discovered Magna Carta is a very important find. Most of the 25 known originals are in museums and libraries in England. In 2007, one original was sold at auction for $21.3 million.

But for the professors, the value of the document isn’t about money. It’s about the message the document carries.

“If you asked anybody what the most famous single document in the history of the world is, they would probably name Magna Carta,” Professor Vincent says. He says the lesson is still important today: A leader “cannot simply go against somebody because he doesn’t like them, he has to do it using the law.”

*HLS MS 172 stood for “Harvard Law School Manuscript 172”.