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| The Sandwich Magna Carta of 1300 |
As a result of research for the Magna Carta Project, a previously
unknown exemplar of the 1300 Magna Carta has been discovered in Sandwich, Kent.
The find was made when Nicholas Vincent, our Project’s Principal Investigator, asked
Kent County Council’s community history officer, Dr Mark Bateson, to look up a
copy of Sandwich’s Charter of the Forest. This led to the discovery of the
Magna Carta in the Sandwich archive in Maidstone. It is of great significance,
particularly as it survives with its partner Forest Charter of 1300. Only one
other extant pair is known, kept at Oriel College, Oxford.
Like the other exemplars of Magna Carta, the Sandwich charter is a large document (over half a metre in
length). It has been badly damaged by damp, missing about a third of its text,
and its royal seal has also disappeared. It had survived, unbeknownst to its archivists,
in a scrapbook compiled by a British Museum official, E. Salisbury, at the end
of the 19th century.
The 1300 Magna Carta, issued by Edward I, was apparently the
last drawn up by the royal chancery and distributed under the king’s seal. The discovery
of the Sandwich Magna Carta brings the number of surviving originals of 1300 to seven.
That the newly discovered exemplar was sent to Sandwich, one of the Cinque
Ports, suggests that the Charters were sent to as many as fifty towns and ports
– a much wider distribution than was previously thought.
Professor Vincent will give his own detailed account of this discovery in next week's TLS, and thereafter on this blog.
You can read Professor Vincent’s comments on the Sandwich
discovery in The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Mirror, Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, BBC News, CNN, ABC Radio, news.com.au, 9 news, The Australian, The Daily Mail, The Independent, Sky News, the Evening Standard and the Eastern Daily Press.
Read more from the Magna Carta Project, on the Magna Carta Project website.
Read about the work of Magna Carta Project experts in examining the four surviving 1215 Magna Cartas here.
Read about the work of Magna Carta Project experts in examining the four surviving 1215 Magna Cartas here.
