Add MS 46144

LACOCK ABBEY MAGNA CARTA

46144. MAGNA CARTA 1225: the exemplification of the Great Charter of Liberties granted by Henry III at Westminster, 11 Feb. 1225, that was sent to the county of Wiltshire and subsequently deposited at Lacock Abbey (see further below). No contemporary enrolment of the charter's text survives, but the Red Book of the Exchequer, in the Public Record Office, contains an early transcript (E. 164/2, ff. 183-184). Two other surviving exemplifications are respectively among the archives of the Duchy of Lancaster preserved in the Public Record Office (D.L. 1O/71) and in those of the Dean and Chapter of Durham at Durham Cathedral (1. 2. Reg. 2); of two further putative exemplifications from Battle Abbey and at Norwich Cathedral, referred to by W. Blackstone, The Great Charter and Charter of the Forest, 1759, p. xlvi, no trace can now be found. Only at Durham is the charter accompanied by an exemplification of the Charter of the Forest, granted by Henry III at the same time. The text of the charter, taken from that of its confirmation by Edward I in 1297, in which form it passed into English law, was first printed by Richard Pynson [Antiqua Statuta], 1508 (STC. 9266), ff. 1-7b. The text of the present exemplification, which has certain variant readings, was first printed by Blackstone, op. cit., pp. 47-59, in collation with other texts; that of the Durham exemplification, which has also some variant readings, in Statutes of the Realm, 1810-1828, i, pp. 22-28, with similar collation and a facsimile. Among many subsequent reprints, those of C. Bémont, Chartes des Libertés Anglaises, 1892, pp. 46-60, and W. S. McKechnie, Magna Carta, 2nd ed., 1914, pp. 497-508, indicate its relationship to the earlier charters of liberties granted by King John in 1215, and by Henry III in 1216 and 1217. For the present document, see also Blackstone, op. cit., p. xlvii; A. J. Collins, Notes on the Lacock Abbey Magna Carta Of 1225, 1947; 'The Lacock Abbey Magna Carta', Brit. Mus. Quart. xvi, 1951-1952, pp. 1-2, and plate 1; G. R. C. Davis, Magna Carta, 1963, p. 30, and plate VI. Vellum; 1 membrane. 500 mm. x 320 mm. A.D. 1225. Ruled with a plummet (the ruling being subsequently for the most part erased), and written continuously, 67 lines of text, in a clear Court hand, the opening four words in capital letters, but otherwise without decoration. Written space 460 mm. x 300 mm. An impression, now imperfect, in green wax, of the first Great Seal of Henry III is appended by a plaited green silk cord of four strands, which has round it part of a seal bag of natural coloured silk, stitched along the edge in pale blue, of which another part was retained by the donor and remains at Lacock Abbey; for engravings of the seal in the 18th century, when it was slightly less damaged, see Blackstone, op. cit., pp. 59 (obverse), 67 (reverse). An identificatory endorsement written in contemporary book hand, in two lines along part of the edge of the verso reads: 'Hen(rici) Reg(is) fil(ii) Ioh(annis) Reg(is) de lib(er)tatibus & q(u)ibusda(m) consuetudinibus p(er) Anglia(m) constitut(is).' Above this, another and perhaps slightly later hand has written 'Ex d[e]posito militu(m) Wiltisir'. From the latter endorsement, the document is assumed to have been deposited at Lacock Abbey for safe custody by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, its Foundress in 1232 and Abbess 1239-1257, whose husband William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, had been Sheriff of Wiltshire when it was issued, and who had herself succeeded him in this office 1227-1228 and 1231-1236. In 1759 it was recorded by Blackstone, op. cit., p. xlvii, as in the possession of John Talbot of Lacock, to whom it had presumably descended from Sir William Sharington, purchaser of the Abbey's site in 1540. From John Talbot it passed similarly by descent to the donor, who gives some account of its history in the 20th century and of her gift of it to the British Museum, in My Life and Times at Lacock Abbey, 1956, pp. 188-19O, 255, 259-260. Presented by Miss Matilda Theresa Talbot, C.B.E.