Magna Carta
John, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou in the meadow which is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June, 1215, signed the Great Charter in the presence of assorted heavily armed peers of the realm, who assured him it was the right thing to do.
The British Library has pictures of the Magna Carta available, and Wikipedia has a nice discussion of the document.
The Magna Carta of 1297 is permanently residing in the US National Archives.
The Avalon Project’s translation of the 1215 version with an index and definitions.
8 comments
What’s sad is that the Magna Carta on display in the National Archives is far more legible than either the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence, despite being half a millennium older than any of the latter three.
Better materials, both the ink and what it was written on, it also wasn’t as exposed to the light as the other documents, which certainly caused a lot of their degradation.
Ahhh… so the Magna Carta was a far more respected document than the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence? Well, that certainly sheds light on the current, and to some degree, past Administrations willingness to ignore them. 🙂
The Magna Carta is a very late addition to our archives, and was kept in the dark in a cool cellar for most of its existence, while the other documents have been stored in the heat and humidity of Washington for most of their life.
It has only been recently that we have figured out how to preserve them properly.
Heat and humidity are less of a problem than light. I confess I’m not certain what the originals of the Declaration and the Constitution are written on. If it’s parchment and not paper, a little humidity isn’t such a bad thing–and they need to be handled more. The oils on human skin actually help keep parchment supple, whereas they can be very bad for paper.
I know that for years they were in the Secretary of State’s keeping with no effort at preservation of any kind and they were on display in the open for a long time, not even protected by glass.
They are probably parchment, as that was the procedure for the time for all official documents.
[can’t find the link now]
the declaration, constitution, and bill of rights are all on parchment [found it at some official site, like the smithsonian, or something related].
I thought so. The paper of the time was unlikely to have lasted without very special handling.