Magna Carta: A Legacy of Liberty, Reframed & Rewritten

H I S T OR IC AL

L EG AL & P OLI T I CA L

L I NG UI S TI C

MATE RI A L

SIGNIFICANCE

RELEVANCE

CIRCUMSTANCE

SUBSTANCE

The contemporary context How the text of Magna of Magna Carta, and how it Carta has been rewas perceived in 1215. 04 appropriated over time.

Thoughts about the Making a modern Magna translation of Magna Carta Carta, using mostly medieval 22 into Middle English.

26 methods.

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Magna Carta:

A Legacy of Liberty, Reframed & Rewritten Sara Elaine Jackson

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CONTENTS The fun thing about living in the Middle Ages for a while, conducting research and attempting to create something in a way recognizable to those who lived at that time, is that you realize that the world hasn’t changed all that much, and people haven’t changed at all. We adapt to the evolution of our technological and mechanical ability, but when it comes right down to it, we still know how to de-hair a hide when we need to.

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CONTENTS

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WHAT’S INSID E 04 KING JOHN & PUBLIC OPINION Exactly why is King John viewed in such a negative light?

16 ON THE TRAIL OF MAGNA CARTA . . .

Travelling near and far to see the extant exemplifications of the Great Charter, here at home and across the pond.

22 FROM POLITICAL PEACE TREATY TO INTERNATIONAL SYMBOL OF HUMAN RIGHTS?

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What can we conclude from the modern viewpoint that Magna Carta is a legitimate precursor to the human rights instruments of today?

26 A MAGNA CARTA IN MIDDLE ENGLISH? With the idea in mind that Magna Carta means much more than any of its authors intended in 1215, let’s look at how a translation of the charter into Middle English (the contemporary vernacular) allows us to explore what it means to say that Magna Carta was a document “for the people.” »» p.36

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30 A VISIT TO PERGAMENA A little throwback to the Middle Ages lives in upstate New York; this is Pergamena, a modern parchmentery and leather goods producer that offers us a glimpse into the industrialized process of parchment making.

34 THAT’S A BIT OF A STRETCH Before one can entertain the idea of making parchment, one must first build a frame on which to stretch the animal hide.

36 FROM PASTURE TO PARCHMENT

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Without a process, parchment cannot happen. In an effort to replicate medieval methods as closely as possible (which, in some cases, was impossible), the parchment making process for this project stayed lowtech and labor-intensive.

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HISTORICITY

KING JOHN & PUBLIC OPINION

By the time Magna Carta was sealed at Runnymede on 15 June 1215, John “Lackland” had already proven himself to be a subpar ruler.

The youngest of the five sons born to King Henry II (the first ruler of the Angevin Empire, himself a descendant of the Plantagenet rulers before him) and Eleanor of Aquitaine, John was largely ignored until his elder brothers Henry (known as “the Young King” to

differentiate him from his father), Richard (who would later ascend to the throne as “the Lionheart”), and Geoffrey rebelled against their father in 1173. It was only after that insurrection that John became Henry’s favorite son, garnering gifts of land and castles while also rising to a place of privilege (in Henry’s mind, at least) with respect to succession.

After Henry the Young King’s death in 1183, Richard was the eldest surviving son (the first son of Henry and Eleanor, William, had died as a toddler) and heir presumptive. When Henry II died only six years later, after a reign lasting thirty-five years, Richard I became king; he promptly became entangled in the Crusades and his mother, Eleanor, served as his

regent for the majority of his reign.

Ultimately, Richard died in 1299 without issue, and as Geoffrey had predeceased Henry, John was next in line for the throne.

The first years of John’s reign were tumultuous, as he had to fight off a rival claim to the crown by Arthur I of Brittany, the son of his elder brother Geoffrey. Within only a few years, the possessions of the English crown had been significantly curtailed; after a feud with Hugh of Lusignan over a potential second marriage (to Isabella of Angoulême), John was left with nothing but the Duchy of Aquitaine in terms of continental possessions. He would spend much of his time and his royal coffers to try to win back Normandy for the bulk of his reign.

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After so many conflicts, over everything from the reconquest of land to personal slights, John found himself in the first decade of the thirteenth century suffering from a lack of funds and serious issues with the Church, stemming from a conflict with Pope Innocent III over the successor for the Archbishopric of Canterbury. Not only was John excommunicated, but an interdict was also placed on England preventing its denizens from taking part in religious services (save baptism and last rites).

This was the last straw for many of the disenchanted nobles who had spent the previous several years struggling under John’s taxation plans and watching their funding go to waste in his unsuccessful campaigns. After a great deal of pressure, John finally settled his feud with the pope, and entered into a reconciliation in 1213. This hardly solved the many problems that had been illuminated by the barons in their meetings and communications with the king; after a particularly disastrous attempt in 1214 to retake Normandy, which culminated in the Battle of Bouvines, John was forced to relinquish his claims on the territory as well as compensate the victor, King Philip II of France.

Where did he get the funds? Why, from his barons’ contributions to the exchequer, of course. The threats became more insistent,

and John was finally convinced: he would have to find a way to satisfy the barons.

An initial meeting between the king and his nobles in London, held in January 1215, began the dialogues that would eventually result in Magna Carta. Each side was convinced of their righteousness:

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John sure of his divine right, the rebel barons certain of their own position within the realm. After many deliberations, the two sides agreed to meet at a spot along the Thames, near Windsor Castle, to seal the document that resulted from their peace negotiations.

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1215: A YEAR IN REVIEW 04

M A R C H

King John pledges an oath to Pope Innocent III to serve the Church in a forthcoming fifth crusade, provided the Pope would openly support John amidst growing unrest amongst his nobility.

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FEBRUARY

Death of Bishop Eustace of Ely, who had served as Lord Chancellor to King Richard I and was often in the opposition under King John’s reign, given the king’s seeming disregard for the church. Eustace lifted the official excommunication of John in July 1214, upon his return from exile.

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M

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Rebellious English barons provide King John with a list of their demands, a series of articles that offer relief from excessive taxation and provide certain protections for cities and the Church; thus begins an extended negotiation between John and these members of the nobility regarding the role of the monarch in medieval English society.

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J

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7

Y

Frederick II was crowned King of Germany, some five years prior to his eventual coronation as Holy Roman Emperor (following the forced abdication of Otto IV earlier in 1215).

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After nearly a month of discussion, King John meets with a cadre of barons at Runnymede, on the Thames between London and Windsor, to affix his seal to Magna Carta.

SEP TEMBER

Kublai Khan is born; as the grandson of Genghis Khan, he will accede to power in China at the age of 45. His reign would be noted for its harsh approach to foreign relations and willingness to engage in war, while also bringing in outside scientific and artistic influences.

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The Mongols, under the leadership of Genghis Khan, conquer Zhongdu (modern-day Beijing).

They will continue to fight the Jin dynasty for nearly another quartercentury before they succeed in conquering China as a whole.

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A U G U S T

While King John had already rejected Magna Carta after the fact, causing renewed conflict and the beginning of the First Baron’s War, Pope Innocent III stepped in and issued a papal bull invalidating the charter for good measure, given its perceived negative impact on the Church.

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NOVEMBER

Called by Pope Innocent III, the Fourth Council of the Lateran gathers in Rome to discuss disparate issues related to the Church and its proper function in the Middle Ages. Š Sara Elaine Jackson

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HISTORICITY

The Lincoln engrossment was visiting the United States when World War II broke out in 1939; it remained in America, locked up at Fort Knox, until after the cessation of hostilities.

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THE LINCOLN MAGNA CARTA In addition to its close connections with the United States, one can find immense historical import to be found within an investigation into the “autobiography,” if you will, of the Lincoln exemplification. As the Lincoln Cathedral guidebook states, “In a sense, Lincoln is where the story of Magna Carta begins and ends. A young Lincolnshire cleric called Stephen Langton studied at the schools of Lincoln Cathedral, and later became Archbishop of Canterbury. He instilled in Magna Carta his ideas on just kingship. But King John renounced Magna Carta within weeks of agreeing to it. He cut a swathe through Lincolnshire in a civil war to save his throne. Illness ended his life in Newark Castle, a residence of the bishops of Lincoln.

Fighting continued, until the climax was reached in a battle in Lincoln which defeated the French prince and rebel barons, asserting the succession of John’s son Henry III to the English throne.” Far from being the “forgotten” copy, he Lincoln charter is the best travelled and most emulated of the extant engrossments.

the 800th anniversary of the document’s creation. Having been a guest in Boston and Williamstown, both in Massachusetts, as well as the Library of Congress, it returned to Britain just in time to come together with the other three surviving copies for a one-time-only event at the British Library in February of this year.

The Lincoln engrossment is the one that most Americans have seen, who have seen a copy of Magna Carta in person. It has travelled as far as Brisbane, Australia, and is unique in that it was written in an “official” hand, according to scholar Nicholas Vincent.

Because of this document’s importance to Lincoln, a new exhibition gallery and visitor center was constructed just in time to celebrate the return of the Lincoln copy of Magna Carta from an aroundthe-US journey in celebration of © Sara Elaine Jackson

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THE CANTERBURY MAGNA CARTA In the year 1630, manuscript collector Sir Robert Cotton received from his friend Sir Edward Dering a copy of Magna Carta that was long thought to have been the copy sent to the Confederation of Cinque Ports, a group of towns in Kent and Sussex. Because of Dering’s lieutenancy at Dover Castle, this made sense, geographically speaking. But after years of in-depth archival research, scholar David Carpenter was able to recently conclude that this heavily damaged engrossment is the copy which might very well have been sent to Archbishop Stephen Langton, an architect of Magna Carta, himself, in commemoration of the sealing.

This document has seen better days, as you can see from the image to your right. After suffering significant damage (alongside the Beowulf manuscript) in the 1731 fire at Ashburnham House, where the Cotton library was stored, it was later the victim of a wellmeaning attempt to correct some of that damage. Note that, while the naked eye can make out little of the content of the document, new technological advances such as spectral imaging have given scholars the ability to read the document because of the longevity of iron gall ink, which writes on parchment by causing a chemical reaction of sorts with the skin.

The recent exhibition at the British Library, “Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy” was able to borrow several items from the Canterbury archives that added context related to Langton and his contributions to the charter. Langton, whose memorial window is pictured below, is regarded as one of the most important advisers on whom King John relied during the creation of the charter.

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This exemplification was only recently determined to have been originally in the possession of the Archbishopric of Canterbury; despite significant damage (in a fire and later in a botched restoration attempt), it is the only one that retains its seal. |

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The Salisbury exemplification is roundly considered the best preserved of all four surviving 1215 engrossments. It has only left the Chapter House for conservation, and for the anniversary unification earlier this year.

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THE SALISBURY MAGNA CARTA In June of this year, it was announced by two separate teams of researchers (the first comprised of scholars Nicholas Vincent and David Carpenter, the second comprised of scholars Elaine Treharne and Andrew Prescott) that recent inquiries into the identities of the scribes of the extant exemplifications showed that the Lincoln and Salisbury copies were drafted by ecclesiastical scribes at the respective cathedrals; each team had worked independently, and from different evidence, with respect to the Salisbury charter (the Lincoln inquiry was strictly under the purview of Vincent and Carpenter).

This altered the prevailing conclusion that had been in place for centuries, namely that royal scribes would have been responsible in some way for the engrossment of the copies of Magna Carta later distributed to the towns of importance during King John’s reign.

One of the interesting ways in which the Salisbury engrossment is unique as compared with the other surviving exemplifications is that it was written in a manner best referred to as “book hand” by scholars; this is different from the more documentary or “diplomatic hand” of the others, a reference to the distinctive ways in which its letters are formed. Detailed paleographical examinations of each and every letter were undertaken by these research teams, and the also took into account some of the administrative features of the documents, such as the methods by which the seals were attached, to form their conclusions.

Far from being merely an interesting trivia fact previously unknown to experts, this new information forever “changes our understanding of the use of written documents in government in the early thirteenth century,” according to Treharne and Prescott. This has been a very good anniversary year for Magna Carta, in that even eight hundred years after its creation, we are still learning of key pieces to the puzzle of its materiality and context. © Sara Elaine Jackson

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COTTON MS AUGUSTUS II.106 For anyone who had the privilege of attending any Magna Carta events in the UK this year, the image of this exemplification, to the right, will be familiar. Given that it is the sole engrossment in the possession of the British Library in readable condition, this is the image familiar to many from the promotional materials related to the unprecedented exhibition at the Library, as well as much of the attendant merchandise available in the Library’s gift shop and online. Its ubiquity notwithstanding, this is the copy of the charter about which we know the least in terms of its provenance, which leaves compelling research questions available for scholars.

Whether a factual anecdote or merely an apocryphal legend, the commonly accepted tale is that the Cotton Augustus engrossment was found in a tailor’s shop in the City of London (an official designation of a specific historical area of modern London, as shown in the seventeenth century map above) by a lawyer of the Inner Temple, Humphrey Wymes, sometime in the mid-1620s.

In scholar Claire Breay’s recent book on Magna Carta, she notes that, while each of the four extant exemplifications is quite singular, and despite the fact that some claims of superiority are made by their respective holders (usually for cosmetic reasons), each of these copies is viewed as an equal to its sisters, and appreciated with the same authoritative weight. Of course, there are many other copies of other issuances of the Magna Carta that survive, from the 1225 edition to the 1297 charters. But our continuing fascination with the 1215 engrossments is sustained by the questions that experts in the field continue to develop, as well as answer, in their research.

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Š Sara Elaine Jackson

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The final mystery for anyone interested in the attribution and provenance of the extant exemplifications, this second of two Cotton manuscripts is the only one in landscape orientation. |

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ON THE TRAIL OF M

When I first decided to make part of my research mission seeing each of the extant exemplifications in person, it was convenient that, at that time, the Lincoln engrossment was on view at the Library of Congress (whose ornate Jefferson building is shown above) in Washington, DC. My visit there allowed me to stop in and see the 1297 exemplification permanently housed at the National Archives, a

gift of David M. Rubenstein, the co-founder of private equity firm The Carlyle Group. In both cases, I was struck by two things: how few people were in attendance at the times of my visits, and how little they seemed to know about the great charter going in.

During spring break, I planned a research trip to England, scheduling meetings with several individuals conducting Magna Carta research, arranging tours of the British Library and Salisbury Cathedral, attending lectures in Salisbury and London that discussed the historical import and modern relevance of Magna Carta, and visiting the three surviving copies I had yet to see.

My first stop was Windsor, a few short miles from Runnymede,

where I checked into a little bedand-breakfast before attempting to reach the site of the sealing of Magna Carta by bus; I fared poorly, as it is uncommon for tourists to attempt to get to Runnymede without the benefit of an automobile. After some false directions, which led me to the Runnymede Conference Center (promotional tagline: “where we specialize in MAGNA events!”), I eventually found my way to the unassuming field near the Thames where the American Bar Association monument to Magna Carta stands, close to the island in the Thames reputed to be the actual sealing location.

The enthusiasm of Americans for Magna Carta has its roots in our Founding Fathers’ appreciation of Magna Carta as a foundational

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MAGNA CARTA . . . document for the enumeration of individual human rights, begun only in favor of the rebellious barons in the document itself but which later became the first chip in the divine right of kings that revolutionized how men in positions of power were forced to interact with their subjects. Thomas Jefferson certainly drew on his perception of Magna Carta when drafting the Declaration of Independence; it seems that the United States, a former colony, preoccupies itself far more with the great charter than does its former imperial ruler.

My second stop was Salisbury, and arguably the best preserved of the extant charters from the 1215 original issue. The cathedral itself is magnificent, visible for miles as it soars over the Salibury Plain - yes, that famous home of Stonehenge, about 13km to the north. So much of the history of Salisbury is dependent upon its ecclesiastical relevance; the original settlement, Old Sarum, is a former Roman, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon stronghold that dates back nearly five thousand years (fun fact: until 2009, the official name of the city of Salisbury was “New Sarum”).

The chapter house, where Magna Carta has lived since its inscription in 1215, is a beautiful, light-filled room with mullioned windows and stone benches. The small exhibition on view at the time of my visit also emphasized materiality, which I appreciated; they had on hand a miniature version of the kind of stretching frame you can see onsite today, as well as some of the same scribal paraphernalia on view here.

Next on my Magna Carta pilgrimage was the British Library, holder of two of the four surviving engrossments. Both had been held in the collection of Sir Robert Cotton, and while one has now been proven to have been a copy made by a scribe at Canterbury for the Archbishopric there, the provenance of the other remains a bit of a mystery. In February, about a

month before my visit, all four 1215 copies had been brought together for a one-time-only event at the Library, where eminent scholars such as Nicholas Vincent and Clarie Breay were able to engage in direct comparitive examination of them together for the first time.. Luckily, despite the fact that I couldn’t participate in that event, the Library’s exhibition “Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy” opened to the public the day before my visit, with special guest Charles, Prince of Wales’ visit.

The duration of my time in London was spent at the exhibition, and at a fantastic lecture given by Vincent, who addressed many of the threads of inquiry for which I had engaged in this research. Having seen each of the four exemplifications, and having internalized so much information from the various sources (in person exhibits, digital elements, books, pamphlets, tours, etc.), my last stop was the Temple Church, in the City of London. Home to the Knights Templar in King John’s time, Temple Church today seems like a portal to the past, a fitting end to a time-travelling tour.

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MAGNA CARTA IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM

MAGNA CARTA: AN EMBROIDERY One of the more fanciful undertakings related to the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta has been the creation of a forty-two-foot long, five foot wide embroidery of the Wikipedia entry for Magna Carta as it appeared on 15 June 2014, the 799th anniversary, which was unveiled in time for this year’s celebration.

in thirteen different prisons around the UK, who participated under the auspices of a social arts program known as Fine Cell Work. Much of the rest was completed by the Embroiderers’ Guild as well as students from the Royal School of Needlework.

Displayed in the vestibule for the exhibition on Magna Carta which took place at the British Library. the embroidery will be on view in Oxford at the Commissioned by the Ruskin Bodleian Libraries until early School of Art at Oxford University, 2016, when it will then leave on a this project stems from an idea tour that will last through much attributed to renowned British of 2017. textile artist Cornelia Parker. The captured Wikipedia page was first printed onto fabric as a pattern, then cut up into eighty-seven individual sections and sent around the UK, allowing over 200 individuals to contribute to the efforts, in keeping with the kind of collaborative spirit in which Wikipedia is itself created and maintained.

Amongst the diverse contributors able to take part were scholars such as Dr. Martin Kauffmann, Head of Early and Rare Collections at the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford, and entrepreneurs such as Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

The bulk of the embroidery was completed by thirty-six prisoners

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EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP It can be a bit jarring to see just how easily everything and anything can be commercialized today. From its invocation as part of Jay Z’s recent album Magna Carta / Holy Grail, to its availability as printed leggings (seen to the right), to the wide variety of commemorative merchandise available at the various exhibitions I have attended as well as online, Magna Carta has become a cottage industry in this its 800th anniversary year.

Canadian news agency CBC seems just as bemused (and perhaps amused) as I have been by the dizzying array of options. “For the baby who needs a reminder that they’re not above the law, a soothing Magna Carta pacifier. For the puppy who holds habeas corpus dear, a fetching Magna Carta sweater. For the thirsty tourist who espouses the right of trial by jury, how about some cold Magna Carta beer? The 800th anniversary

of the signing of the Great Charter — which first established the rule of law — has spurred all manner of souvenir, from the staid to the surprising.”

While some might dismiss much of this as madness, one administrator at the British Library pointed out that, while exhibition

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ticket costs fund the larger mission of the museum, proceeds from the many gift items sold in tandem with the exhibition will, in some cases, go specifically to cover costs related to research in progress as well as future inquiries where Magna Carta is concerned. Consider that pacifier a utilitarian donation, then?

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. . . AND FOR THE W

A MAGNA CARTA FOR THE DIGITAL AGE As part of the celebrations related to the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, the British Library established an interactive web site and public vote to discuss “My Digital Rights,” what individuals hope to see in terms of protections online moving forward through the modern age. Students across the Commonwealth were invited

to participate, submitting their own clauses with respect to the autonomy of the World Wide Web, the privacy of individuals online (with particular attention paid to the “right to be forgotten”), issues of cyberbullying, and the prevention of censorship.

Many of the clauses submitted, for which the public can still “vote” on the Library’s website, are tellingly duplicative. The abovementioned concerns are widespread, and the many clauses that discuss privacy or censorship that appear on the site reflect a preoccupation with certain ideals that seems to hearken back to Magna Carta, as well as more contemporary sources for the protection of human rights, such as the American Bill of Rights and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The top ten clauses, as voted by the public in the spring of this year, appear to the right. These kinds of concerns ove the future of the web mirror the same kinds of concerns we find in real life, especially in the wake of efforts to curtail fundamental rights in exchange for security in a world increasingly subject to the whims of terrorists.

The influence of the WikiLeaks scandals, featuring Julian Assange and the release of classified materials from the United States military by Chelsea Manning, as well as the leaks of Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency documents by Edward Snowden seem to highlight the need for restrictions of governmental rights to restrict the public’s access to information.

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WORLD WIDE WEB

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L AW & P O L I T I C S

FROM POLITICAL PEACE TREATY TO INTERNATIONAL SYMBOL OF HUMAN RIGHTS? As the onetime dean of Harvard Law School, Erwin Griswold, once remarked, “Magna Carta is not primarily significant for what is was, but rather for what it was amde to be.” In any examination of the ways in which Magna Carta is cited in our time, it seems important to remember this quotation and the accuracy of its implications.

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L AW & P O L I T I C S In his recent article for the British Library, legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg opined that “Magna Carta has become a world-class brand, representing human rights, democracy and free speech – despite the fact that the original document makes no mention of these principles.” This is essentially the crux of the commonly accepted scholarly argument where Magna Carta is concerned: in its own context, it was far more “about fish weirs and river banks, about taxes and debts,” an administrative charter to benefit the very specific interests of a powerful minority.

While some scholars have recently presented their work at conferences here in America and in the UK, with a focus on new inquiries into what kinds of legal impacts the Magna Carta may have inspired in the succeeding centuries through to today, there seems little to go on at present that does not support the kind of sentiment expressed on the facing page, in the popular quotation from prominent legal scholar Erwin Griswold. One researcher from Baylor University has made inroads in identifying snippets of language that seem evocative of Magna Carta in some of the statutes created in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, but even he notes that “Shakespeare himself obviously thought little of Magna Carta or its impact in his time, as his play King John ignores the supposedly ‘great’ charter entirely, despite its arguable importance to the King himself.”

But as Rozenberg notes, Magna Carta remains an important symbol for the creators of many subsequent rights documents. In reality, only three provisions of the original Magna Carta remain valid in English Common Law:

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one referencing the durable freedom of the Church of England, another that protects the City of London and its historical liberties and customs, and the last, which is likely best known: “No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will we not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right.”

At the same time, while certain elements remain “on the books,” as it were, they are increasingly recognized as being antiquated and illutilized. According to Rozenberg, “A search of the Westlaw UK database reveals that the courts of England and Wales have referred to Magna Carta in around 160 reported judgments over a period of some 450 years: not, perhaps, a particularly large number. And I have not found a single modern English case that was decided on the strength of Magna Carta alone.” Obviously, there is a great deal of evidence to support the contention that Magna Carta has only a symbolic place in the legal system today.

That being said, the British Library

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clarifies that “Magna Carta is still invoked in law courts around the world, often as a rhetorical flourish, but sometimes to greater effect.

The enduring American relevance of Magna Carta is demonstrated in this judgment by the Supreme Court (seen on the right) of the United States concerning the detention without charge of Lakhdar Boumediene at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Reviewing the case in 2008, the Supreme Court justices made explicit mention of Magna Carta when tracing the history of habeas corpus, to rule that Guantánamo Bay detainees had an absolute right to petition for that writ despite Congress legislating to the contrary. In the majority opinion of the Supreme Court justices, the writ of habeas corpus was ‘the means by which the promise of Magna Carta was fulfilled’ and should be upheld. Following this judgment, Boumediene was released in May

2009 after seven years in detention.” Although perhaps only useful to us because of what we project onto it, Magna Carta remains relevant in at least an ideological sense, even eight hundred years after the fact.

Although there is much mythology surrounding Magna Carta, it is important to note that “Whatever we may find in the written text, Magna Carta has come down to us through the centuries as the most important single document in the development of constitutional and legal freedom and adherence to the rule of law in the common law world, eventually followed in and hugely influencing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,” according to Lord Judge, a former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales,

whose remarks as quoted above in 2014 reflect an appreciation for the charter even solely as a tenuous foundation upon which further advancement evolved within the sphere of human rights.

Earlier this year, UK Prime Minister David Cameron got into trouble after suggesting that a break with the European Court of Human Rights and the replacement of the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights would be more in line with Magna Carta.

(Three years prior, he was unable to answer late night talk show host David Letterman when questioned about what “Magna Carta” would translate to in modern English.)

The New York Times noted that it seemed like a case when “Like the Holy Grail, the myth of Magna Carta seems to matter more than the reality.” Perhaps it is time that the myth finally be laid to rest.

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LINGUISTICS

A MAGNA CARTA IN MIDDLE ENGLISH

When this research first began, it was because of questions that arose during a course on Middle English, here at IPFW taught by Dr. Damian Fleming. For several weeks, the class engaged in translation from Middle English into modern English, an act that often revealed interesting things about how our language has developed over time, as well as what similarities and differences one can see between the two periods and their cultures via-à-vis their linguistic foundations. As my interest in Magna Carta grew, it did so first from within this sphere of language; my hypothesis was that modern scholars could derive useful observations about the charter by undertaking a research route more

focused on material studies aspects than on some of the other strands of inquiry that have already been discussed here.

Above you will see two sixteenthcentury printings of the text of Magna Carta as issued by Edward I in 1297, which remains in statute today (despite the fact that a vast majority of its clauses have since been repealed). The version on the left is in Latin, like the original; the version on the right is the first time that the document was translated into English for the purposes of dissemination. One will note that the English here is early modern, the same stage of our language in which William Shakespeare wrote his seminal dramatic works.

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I suppose that the way I think of it, which governed my interest in exploring this topic, is this: if someone walked up to you and said, “Here, this is a new body of laws or statues that applies to you, and guarantees certain freedoms,” would that document be in a language other than your native language, the only language you’ve ever known? The idea that Magna Carta was ever in its time conceived of as a document relative to the masses seems absurd. Certainly, we no longer have formal language distinctions between the language of chrch and state and the vernacular, but if soemone walked up to you with a Macgna Carta in colloquial English, I’m guessing you’d conclude that the audiece is fairly broad.

MAGNA CHARTRE LIN GUISTICS MAGNA CARTA CARTA // GREAT GREAT CHARTER CHARTER // GRETE GRETE CHARTRE

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Johannes Dei gracia rex Anglie, Dominus Hibernie, dux Normannie, Aquitannie et comes Andegavie, Johannes Johannes Dei Dei gracia gracia rex rex Anglie, Anglie, Dominus Dominus Hibernie, Hibernie, dux dux Normannie, Normannie, Aquitannie Aquitannie et et comes comes Andegavie, Andegavie, archiepiscopis, episcopis, episcopis, abbatibus, abbatibus, comitibus, comitibus, baronibus, baronibus, justiciariis, justiciariis, forestariis, forestariis, vicecomitibus, vicecomitibus, prepositis, prepositis, archiepiscopis, archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbatibus, comitibus, baronibus, justiciariis, forestariis, vicecomitibus, prepositis, ministris et omnibus ballivis et fidelibus suis salutem.

Sciatis nos intuitu Dei et pro salute anime ministris Dei et et pro pro salute salute anime anime nostre nostre et et ministris et et omnibus omnibus ballivis ballivis et et fidelibus fidelibus suis suis salutem. salutem. Sciatis Sciatis nos nos intuitu intuitu Dei nostre et omnium antecessorum antecessorum et et heredum heredum nostrorum nostrorum ad ad honorem honorem Dei Dei et et exaltacionem exaltacionem sancte sancte Ecclesie, Ecclesie, et et omnium omnium antecessorum et heredum nostrorum ad honorem Dei et exaltacionem sancte Ecclesie, et emendacionem regi nostri, per consilium venerabilium patrum nostrorum, Stephani Cantuariensis emendacionem emendacionem regi regi nostri, nostri, per per consilium consilium venerabilium venerabilium patrum patrum nostrorum, nostrorum, Stephani Stephani Cantuariensis Cantuariensis archiepsicopi, tocius tocius Anglie primatis primatis et sancte sancte Romane ecclesie ecclesie cardinalis, Henrici Henrici Dublinensis archiepsicopi, archiepsicopi, tocius Anglie Anglie primatis et et sancte Romane Romane ecclesie cardinalis, cardinalis, Henrici Dublinensis Dublinensis archiepiscopi, Willelmi Londoniensis, Petri Wintoniensis, Joscelini Bathoniensis et Glastoniensis, archiepiscopi, archiepiscopi, Willelmi Willelmi Londoniensis, Londoniensis, Petri Petri Wintoniensis, Wintoniensis, Joscelini Joscelini Bathoniensis Bathoniensis et et Glastoniensis, Glastoniensis, Hugonis Lincolniensis, Lincolniensis, Walteri Walteri Wygorniensis, Wygorniensis, Willelmi Willelmi Coventriensis, Coventriensis, et et Benedicti Benedicti Roffensis, Roffensis, Hugonis Hugonis Lincolniensis, Walteri Wygorniensis, Willelmi Coventriensis, et Benedicti Roffensis, episcoporum; magistri Pandulfi domini pape subdiaconi et familiaris, fratris Aymerici magistri milicie episcoporum; episcoporum; magistri magistri Pandulfi Pandulfi domini domini pape pape subdiaconi subdiaconi et et familiaris, familiaris, fratris fratris Aymerici Aymerici magistri magistri milicie milicie Templi in Anglia; et nobilium virorum Willelmi Mariscalli comitis Penbrocie, Willelmi comitis Templi in Anglia; et nobilium virorum Willelmi Mariscalli comitis Penbrocie, Willelmi Templi in Anglia; et nobilium virorum Willelmi Mariscalli comitis Penbrocie, Willelmi comitis comitis Sarisberie, Willelmi comitis Warennie, Willelmi comitis Arundellie, Alani de Galewey aa constabularii Sarisberie, Sarisberie, Willelmi Willelmi comitis comitis Warennie, Warennie, Willelmi Willelmi comitis comitis Arundellie, Arundellie, Alani Alani de de Galewey Galewey a constabularii constabularii Scocie, Warini filii Geroldi, Petri filii Hereberti, Huberti de Burgo senescalli Pictavie, Hugonis de Scocie, Warini filii Geroldi, Petri filii Hereberti, Huberti de Burgo senescalli Pictavie, Scocie, Warini filii Geroldi, Petri filii Hereberti, Huberti de Burgo senescalli Pictavie, Hugonis Hugonis de de Nevilla, Mathei Mathei filii filii Hereberti, Hereberti, Thome Thome Basset, Basset, Alani Alani Basset, Basset, Philippi Philippi de de Albiniaco, Albiniaco, Roberti Roberti de de Roppel., Roppel., Nevilla, Nevilla, Mathei filii Hereberti, Thome Basset, Alani Basset, Philippi de Albiniaco, Roberti de Roppel., Johannis Mariscalli, Johannis filii Hugonis et aliorum fidelium nostrum.

Johannis Johannis Mariscalli, Mariscalli, Johannis Johannis filii filii Hugonis Hugonis et et aliorum aliorum fidelium fidelium nostrum. nostrum.

John, by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and John, John, by by the the grace grace of of God God King King of of England, England, Lord Lord of of Ireland, Ireland, Duke Duke of of Normandy Normandy and and Aquitaine, Aquitaine, and and Count of of Anjou, to to his archbishops, archbishops, bishops, abbots, abbots, earls, barons, barons, justices, foresters, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, stewards, Count Count of Anjou, Anjou, to his his archbishops, bishops, bishops, abbots, earls, earls, barons, justices, justices, foresters, sheriffs, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and to all his officials and loyal subjects, greeting. Know that before God, for the health of our servants, servants, and and to to all all his his officials officials and and loyal loyal subjects, subjects, greeting. greeting. Know Know that that before before God, God, for for the the health health of of our our soul and and those those of of our our ancestors ancestors and and heirs, heirs, to to the the honor honor of of God, God, the the exaltation exaltation of of the the holy holy Church, Church, and and the soul soul and those of our ancestors and heirs, to the honor of God, the exaltation of the holy Church, and the the better ordering of our kingdom, at the advice of our reverend fathers Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, better ordering of our kingdom, at the advice of our reverend fathers Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, better ordering of our kingdom, at the advice of our reverend fathers Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, and cardinal of the holy Roman Church, Henry archbishop of Dublin, William primate primate of of all all England, England, and and cardinal cardinal of of the the holy holy Roman Roman Church, Church, Henry Henry archbishop archbishop of of Dublin, Dublin, William William bishop of London, Peter bishop of Winchester, Jocelin bishop of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh bishop of bishop of London, Peter bishop of Winchester, Jocelin bishop of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh bishop of London, Peter bishop of Winchester, Jocelin bishop of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh bishop bishop of of Lincoln, Walter Bishop of Worcester, William bishop of Coventry, Benedict bishop of Rochester, master Lincoln, Walter Bishop of Worcester, William bishop of Coventry, Benedict bishop of Rochester, Lincoln, Walter Bishop of Worcester, William bishop of Coventry, Benedict bishop of Rochester, master master Pandulf subdeacon subdeacon and member member of the the papal household, household, Brother Aymeric Aymeric master of of the knighthood knighthood of Pandulf Pandulf subdeacon and and member of of the papal papal household, Brother Brother Aymeric master master of the the knighthood of of the Temple in England, William Marshal earl of Pembroke, William earl of Salisbury, William earl of the Temple in England, William Marshal earl of Pembroke, William earl of Salisbury, William earl of the Temple in England, William Marshal earl of Pembroke, William earl of Salisbury, William earl of Warren, William William earl of of Arundel, Alan Alan de Galloway Galloway constable of of Scotland, Warin Warin Fitz Gerald, Gerald, Peter Fitz Fitz Warren, Warren, William earl earl of Arundel, Arundel, Alan de de Galloway constable constable of Scotland, Scotland, Warin Fitz Fitz Gerald, Peter Peter Fitz Herbert, Hubert de Burgh seneschal of Poitou, Hugh de Neville, Matthew Fitz Herbert, Thomas Basset, Herbert, Fitz Herbert, Herbert, Thomas Thomas Basset, Basset, Herbert, Hubert Hubert de de Burgh Burgh seneschal seneschal of of Poitou, Poitou, Hugh Hugh de de Neville, Neville, Matthew Matthew Fitz Alan Basset, Basset, Philip Philip Daubeny, Daubeny, Robert Robert de de Roppeley, Roppeley, John John Marshal, Marshal, John John Fitz Fitz Hugh, Hugh, and and other other loyal loyal Alan Alan Basset, Philip Daubeny, Robert de Roppeley, John Marshal, John Fitz Hugh, and other loyal subjects. subjects. subjects.

John, bi þe grace of Gode kenge of Engelond, lauerd of Irlaunde, duk of Normandie and Aquitayne, an John, John, bi bi þe þe grace grace of of Gode Gode kenge kenge of of Engelond, Engelond, lauerd lauerd of of Irlaunde, Irlaunde, duk duk of of Normandie Normandie and and Aquitayne, Aquitayne, an an Counte of Angoy, to his arche-bischops, biscopes, abbods, ærles, baruns, iustices, forsteres, scirreves, Counte Counte of of Angoy, Angoy, to to his his arche-bischops, arche-bischops, biscopes, biscopes, abbods, abbods, ærles, ærles, baruns, baruns, iustices, iustices, forsteres, forsteres, scirreves, scirreves, stiwards, seruants, an to al his officiales an leial sogettes, gretunge.

Cunne þat biforen Gode, for þe helþe stiwards, stiwards, seruants, seruants, an an to to al al his his officiales officiales an an leial leial sogettes, sogettes, gretunge. gretunge. Cunne Cunne þat þat biforen biforen Gode, Gode, for for þe þe helþe helþe of ure sawle an þas of ure aunceteres an eyrs, to þe onour of Gode, þe exaltacioun of þe holy Chirche, an of of ure ure sawle sawle an an þas þas of of ure ure aunceteres aunceteres an an eyrs, eyrs, to to þe þe onour onour of of Gode, Gode, þe þe exaltacioun exaltacioun of of þe þe holy holy Chirche, Chirche, an an þe betere betere ordring of of ure kyngdome, kyngdome, att þe þe avys of of ure reuerent reuerent fadris Stephen, Stephen, arche-bischop of of þe þe betere ordring ordring of ure ure kyngdome, att att þe avys avys of ure ure reuerent fadris fadris Stephen, arche-bischop arche-bischop of Canterbury, primate of al Engelond, an cardinale of þe holy Romayn Chirche, Henry arche-bischop of Canterbury, Canterbury, primate primate of of al al Engelond, Engelond, an an cardinale cardinale of of þe þe holy holy Romayn Romayn Chirche, Chirche, Henry Henry arche-bischop arche-bischop of of Dublin, William William biscope biscope of of London, London, Peter Peter biscope biscope of of Winchester, Winchester, Jocelin Jocelin biscope biscope of of Bath Bath and and Dublin, Dublin, William biscope of London, Peter biscope of Winchester, Jocelin biscope of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh biscope of Lincoln, Walter biscope of Worcester, William biscope of Coventry, Glastonbury, Glastonbury, Hugh Hugh biscope biscope of of Lincoln, Lincoln, Walter Walter biscope biscope of of Worcester, Worcester, William William biscope biscope of of Coventry, Coventry, Benedict biscope biscope of of Rochester, Rochester, meister meister Pandulf Pandulf subdiacon subdiacon an an membre membre of of þe þe papal papal houshold, houshold, Broþere Broþere Benedict Benedict biscope of Rochester, meister Pandulf subdiacon an membre of þe papal houshold, Broþere Aymeric meister of þe knyȝthod of þe Temple in Engelond, William Marshal ærl of Pembroke, William Aymeric Aymeric meister meister of of þe þe knyȝthod knyȝthod of of þe þe Temple Temple in in Engelond, Engelond, William William Marshal Marshal ærl ærl of of Pembroke, Pembroke, William William ærl of of Salisbury, William William ærl of of Warren, William William ærl of of Arundel, Alan Alan de Galloway Galloway cunstable of of ærl ærl of Salisbury, Salisbury, William ærl ærl of Warren, Warren, William ærl ærl of Arundel, Arundel, Alan de de Galloway cunstable cunstable of Scotland, Warin Fitz Gerald, Peter Fitz Herbert, Hubert de Burgh seneschall of Poitou, Hugh de Scotland, Scotland, Warin Warin Fitz Fitz Gerald, Gerald, Peter Peter Fitz Fitz Herbert, Herbert, Hubert Hubert de de Burgh Burgh seneschall seneschall of of Poitou, Poitou, Hugh Hugh de de Neville, Matthew Fitz Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan Basset, Philip Daubeny, Robert de Roppeley, John Neville, Matthew Fitz Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan Basset, Philip Daubeny, Robert de Neville, Matthew Fitz Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan Basset, Philip Daubeny, Robert de Roppeley, Roppeley, John John Marshal, John Fitz Hugh, an oþerr leial sogettes.

Marshal, John Fitz Hugh, an oþerr leial sogettes.

Marshal, John Fitz Hugh, an oþerr leial sogettes. © Sara Elaine Jackson

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LINGUISTICS

When I began, I had no idea whether such a sentimental idea as this might have greater scholarly weight. I simply forged ahead, hoping that in the course of translating Magna Carta, I might find some interesting observations to share with an eventual audience, whether that be a single professor or the persons reading this digital magainze. To suggest that this was a document securing popular rights seemed out of joint wih a document written in Latin and produced either by the royal chancery or ecclesiastical scribes. Neither the monarchy nor the Church had much interest at this point in history in suggesting that individuals might have rights over and above those bestowed upon them by each of these entities respectively.

Throughout the translation process, which was extraordinarily timeconsuming, mainly because of

the variation present in Middle English, I found it impossible not to imagine how improbable it seems that Magna Carta could apply to the everyman, who could not have been expected to understand this complex administrative document of state in the first place.

My thoughts were drawn at times to the genre of post-colonial literature, whose authors have gone to great lengths to discuss the impact of conflict between official, or imperial, languages and the native, or colonial, languages. The noman’s land that arises in the space between them is something that social and political theorists have only recently been able to grapple with, but through this research I have seen ways in which the power of language manifests itself not just in the content of Magna Carta, but also in its very specific linguistic context.

WHA UP W ENGL

One important thing to consid situation of the period of the Pla extraordinary cross-pollination that from the Old English of the Anglo dialect of French that William of N conquers England in 1066.

The English language in this development. It would shortly unde many of its words to a variety of so Latin, Old Norse, Old French, etc. Th people and its people’s history. The e English, rather than Latin, would h one to suggest that Magna Carta wa In attempting to translate the very quickly that the key to explor to adhering as closely as possible to unspecific Middle English that se Geoffrey Chaucer to life a few hun

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LINGUISTICS

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AT ’ S WITH LISH?

der when one examines the linguistic antagenet and Angevin kings is the t occurs between what comes forward o-Saxon British Isles and the Norman Normandy brings with him when he

s period was one under significant ergo a great vowel shift, and could trace ource languages, among them Greek, This was a language representative of its essential argument here is that Middle have been the language of choice were as truly an insturment “for the people.” e charter, it became readily apparent ring this hypocrisy of sorts would be o the unpredictable, unregulated, and erved so well to bring the works of ndred years later. © Sara Elaine Jackson

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M AT E R I A L I T Y

This is a field where there is such a mixture of art and science . . . it isn’t just about the right pH levels and following a proven method.

There is that. But it’s also about getting the feel for a skin, and figuring out what it can do. It’s kind of like cooking: yes, recipes help us to ensure a positive outcome, but it is often the case that the personality of the food comes through . . . it’s the same with parchment. Each one is unique.

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A VISIT TO PERGAMENA 1

Receive and prepare skins and hides. Salt is used to preserve skins until they are ready to be worked, and the cool ambient temperature of the century-old warehouse and tannery help to prevent any loss from rotting.

Perhaps it is fitting that, prior to my arrival in Montgomery, a village on the banks of the Wallkill River in southern New York, I stopped in at Hyde Park to see the excellent National Park Service site where Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, made their home.

Part of the exhibition focused on Eleanor’s work in establishing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the milestone United Nations charter of individual freedom that owes a certain debt of ideology, perhaps, to Magna Carta.

After exploring Springwood (the familial name for the FDR estate), I travelled down the Hudson a few miles, crossing over at Newburgh, and found myself at an old brick building that has been used as a

leather tannery for over a century.

This is where the Meyer family currently represented by father Karl and sons Jesse and Stephen plies their trade, after having purchased the disused factory in the early 1980s.

The Meyer tradition of working in leather can be traced back to Eisenberg, Germany, in the midsixteenth century. Wilhelm Meyer arrived on America’s shores in 1830 and brought with him his expertise in the field; after he established himself in Pennsylvania, and later New Jersey, his descendants kept up the family business, under the name of Wilhelm’s grandson, as Richard E. Meyer & Sons, their name even today.

2

Process the skins and hides using several consecutive baths in water (to clean and rinse) and lime (to loosen the follicles for removal or any hair or wool). Often, modern parchmentmaking involves using a sodium sulfide additive to the limewater bath to speed up the process.

3

Using a mechanized stripper, all remaining flesh and hair or wool is removed from the skins.

4

Under constant tension, the skins continue to be worked with a handheld blade called a lunellum, until dry.

© Sara Elaine Jackson

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M AT E R I A L I T Y

The parchmentmaking branch of the business, known as Pergamena, was born in 1999 when son Jesse, a sculptor, recognized the value in reclaiming the traditional methods of production and updating them to a newer, more efficient, more mechanized model. Since that time, business has been booming, which might be a shock to many; in point of fact, parchment is now a common interior design textile option, which makes for intersting bedfellows: medieval conoisseurs mingle with furniture makers on Pergamena’s client list.

When I visited the factory, it was a cold and dreary day in November, and as I pulled up outside, a Ford F450 pulled up alongside me, the bed loaded down with recently field-dressed deer hides. The hunter routinely brought his hides to Pergamena, he told me, because they offered a certain price per

pound of raw materials that can then be made into leather goods and parchment. Some butchers in town sell their beef hides to Jesse, as well. I saw the profit of these relationships as soon as I entered the building: a vast array of pallets stacked person-high with skins, at various stages in the tanning and parchment making processes.

On the preceding page, there is a shot of Jesse salting these incoming hides, which preserves them long enough to accommodate their place in the processing queue. As part of the onsite exhibition, I have also brought a sheepskin at this stage of the process, salted and preserved, as I think that it is important to see how progress is made - this is not an easy process with modern methods, let alone when attempting to use medieval methods and means where possible.

Jesse then led me on a tour of the

factory, a two-story structure with a large and airy ground floor, and a more cramped but ideally suited attic space. The storing, soaking, fleshing, washing, and treating of hides happens downstairs, where the large drums filled with limebath and sodium sulfide work to prepare the skins as they soak them, and the fleshing machine does in five minutes what it takes many hours to do by hand.

Upstairs, then, is where the real action happens: the skins that are ready to become parchment are brought up in barrels, and each skin is painstakingly but quickly attached to an 8’x8’ specially designed stretching frame, using spring-loaded toggle clips and clothesline tighteners to keep high tension on the parchment at all times. The tension is really what makes the parchment, in the end. The protein strands in

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M AT E R I A L I T Y the skin must alter their composition and connections, forming an ever-thinner, ever-stronger, paperlike piece of finished parchment.

This is not a speedy process - even with modern methods, the time for a sheepskin from start to finish is usually at least three days. As I would later discover, working by hand, and without the benefit of some of the “accelerant” chemicals used to expedite the process, working by hand means at least a week for soaking in limebath alone, plus well over ten hours of working the skin using a lunellum (or a substitute; see my later supplies note) for fleshing by hand and dehairing (or dewooling, in my case) with little more than the power of your own grip.

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space in the largest of these storage rooms, and they do a brisk business: while I was there, for around two hours, I saw a UPS pickup made up of around twenty-five outgoing shipments, with destinations as close as New York City and as far away as Honolulu and Vancouver.

Pergamena is hardly the sole purveyor of parchment today; while a number of firms survive who have been in the parchmentmaking business for centuries (especially a couple of well-known firms in the UK, J. Hewit & Sons Ltd. [in Scotland] and William Cowley [in England]), Pergamena’s only real American competition is possibly from John Neal Bookseller, who provides a great number of supplies for the aspiring manuscript scribe, but likely obtains its parchment from a dedicated parchmentery.

why he chose to enter this business.

“Well,” he said, looking back at me, right in the eye, “I suppose it’s probably the same kind of reason why you’re doing this project.

Because this isn’t easy, you know.

You’re probably going to fail - I did, for a while. Then you get the hang of it. But it will be tougher for you, because you’re only probably going to try the once.” He was right and wrong: I did fail, spectacularly, when my first attempt at parchment split in two on the stretching frame after only a couple of days. My second skin, a deer, was not preserved well enough and spoiled before I could begin work on it. My third, and admittedly last, attempt, which you can see on the frame today, reflects chemical and oxidative effects I couldn’t have The office is located upstairs, as prepared for. Ultimately, my visit to well, as is the storage rooms for Pergamena and Jesse’s sound advice finished products. A shipping I asked Jesse about the value of enabled my attempts, and the latter station takes up a fair amount of studying of medieval materials, and also helped salve my failure.

L

ARGE QUANTITIES OF chemicals like hydrated lime and sodium sulfide are a convenience to which individual parchmentmakers cannot aspire. As opposed to these industrial sized barrels full of processing additives, the parchmentmaking process undertaken for this process utilized everyday garden lime, found at a local hardware store, and no further additives.

T

HIS IS A fleshing machine, a piece of equipment (mentioned earlier as “Step 3” of the process) that is designed to eliminate 60% of the work required to process a skin prior to beginning the stretching process. After several hours soaking in the first limebath, a skin will be sent through the flesher once to do much of the dirty work. Another limebath follows, for upwards of a full day; in this “economy of scale” production model, these baths take place in giant rotating drums, which helps to work the skin as it soaks. Another couple of passes through the flesher will typically render a skin ready for more individualized work. © Sara Elaine Jackson

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M AT E R I A L I T Y

THAT’S A BIT OF A STRETCH

W

oodworking requires a certain familiarity . . . as well as access to the appropriate tools. My grandfather’s old saw proved to be a great ally, but was ultimately less than ideal.

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M

y first attempt at a joint for the bottom of the stretching frame; this would prove to be inadequate, and require alteration.

A

I

lthough I wanted to follow medieval methods where possible, certain corners had to be cut; Menard’s doesn’t date to 1215.

n trying to avoid modern conveniences, it was necessary to work more with the wood.

E

ven though I felt great pride in getting to this point, it turned out that I was only a third of the way through a 30-hour process.

T

B

his electric saw quickly became my best friend, in what I began calling my “PseudoMedieval Garage.”

oring holes by hand was attempted but quick abandoned in favor of a drill bit of the appropriate size.

S

tabilization while standing independently was a major necessity, given how limited my workspace was.

O

nce you have managed to get the big steps done, the detail work commences.

T

he first incarnation of my stretching frame . . . now, to find a skin with which to work. © Sara Elaine Jackson

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M AT E R I A L I T Y

S

tirring the skin frequently in the lime bath is a necessity, as the pH of the bath should be around 12.

C

A

alling around to slaughterhouses and meat processing plants yielded little. This sheepskin came from an exporter of hides.

pretty well cleaned skin. Not as clean as the deer skin I used for my first attempt; it split in half on the frame.

Y

ou’ll know that the skin is ready for de-wooling or dehairing -- the wool or hair will just start pulling off in your hands.

T

O

he quality of the skin was excellent. It had already been salted, so a quick rinse was necessary prior to the first lime bath.

nce you’ve de-wooled or de-haired, you’ll have to dispose of the by products.

M

aybe a third of the way through, and wishing that sheep were smaller. The toughest wool to separate is down the legs.

H

ydrated lime, something typically used for the garden, served well without the need for an additional chemical.

W

orking on the skin over the trash bin (a standin for a barrel) while preparing to stretch it on the frame.

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M AT E R I A L I T Y

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FROM PASTURE TO PARCHMENT

T

ension. This, along with other elements, is an essential ingredient in making parchment. The key, as I discovered, is to balance a need for tension with the need to respect the fragility of the sheepskin. Š Sara Elaine Jackson

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M AT E R I A L I T Y

WHAT EXACTLY IS AN OAK GALL?

O

ak galls, or oak apples, are growths which form from the secretions of gall wasp larvae. When crushed and added to a mixture of iron salts and gum arabic, it makes iron gall ink, an excellent pigment.

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M AT E R I A L I T Y

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I HAVE TO WRITE WITH WHAT?

Q

uills would have been the 1215 equivalent of a PaperMate, given readily available feathers from which to fashion these writing implements, and a relatively easy preparatory process. Š Sara Elaine Jackson

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APPENDICES

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY MAGNA CARTA: LAW, LIBERTY, LEGACY Exhibition catalog from the 800th anniversary retrospective at the British Library.

Available on Amazon.

MAGNA CARTA: MANUSCRIPTS & MYTHS Focuses on Magna Carta as a material artifact and discusses its context briefly.

Available on Amazon.

MAGNA CARTA A new concise edition that offers fairly extensive commentary and analysis.

Available on Amazon.

M a g n a C a r t a : A L e g a c y o f L i b e r t y, R e f r a m e d & R e w r i t t e n

Edited by Claire Breay and Julian Harrison

Claire Breay

David Carpenter

APPENDICES

M. T. Clanchy

Robert Hazell and James Melton

J. C. Holt

Nicholas Vincent

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ENGLAND AND ITS RULERS: 1066 - 1307 Great overview of the identity of the monarchy in the medieval period.

Available on Amazon.

MAGNA CARTA AND ITS MODERN LEGACY An examination from a legal perspective of the influence and impact of Magna Carta in the eight centuries since its creation.

Available on Amazon.

MAGNA CARTA The undisputed bible for any beginning scholar on Magna Carta, and recently updated, to boot.

Available on Amazon.

MAGNA CARTA: FOUNDATION OF FREEDOM From a renowned expert, this is an in-depth look at how this political treaty of sorts became viewed as a foundational text for human rights and democracy.

Available on Amazon.

Š Sara Elaine Jackson

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APPENDICES

PERGAMENA Owned and operated by the Meyer family, Pergamena is a parchmentery and a tannery in upstate New York. I visited them last fall to research the methods for parchment making, and have sourced finished parchment and samples through them for this project.

JOHN NEAL BOOKSELLER This firm caters to calligraphers, bookbinders, and conservators -- they have inks (as well as the components necessary to make your own), quills, guides, tools, and other supplies necessary for the armchair medievalist or manuscript enthusiast.

TRAVELING SCRIPTORIUM This site is a blog that functions as a toolkit for medieval studies students and scholars, and provides detailed accounts of methods and materials used in the creation of medieval manuscripts.

THE GETTY MUSEUM Hosted by the folks at Khan Academy, this site offers a lesson in medieval manuscript making that includes video elements and a quiz over what is covered., including the varieties of extant manuscripts studied today.

M a g n a C a r t a : A L e g a c y o f L i b e r t y, R e f r a m e d & R e w r i t t e n

pergamena.net 845.457.3834

johnnealbooks.com 800.369.9598

travelingscriptorium. library.yale.edu

khanacademy.org/ partner-content/ getty-museum/ getty-manuscripts/

APPENDICES

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SOURCES & RESOURCES worldviewexport.com 260.310.3990

WORLDVIEW EXPORTS INT’L This firm, headquartered in Michigan, has a transfer station on Fort Wayne’s south side.

They receive skins and hides from a variety of butchers and slaughterhouses, and I was able to obtain two sheepskins without cost.

ANY HARDWARE STORE Everything needed for the frame can be purchased at any hardware store; luckily, I was able to use some equipment of my grandfather’s and father’s, but what I used could easily have been rented, as well. Finally, the lime used in treating the skins was hydrated lime, obtainable at any garden center.

ANY SUPERSTORE Because of my limited budget, I was not able to obtain a replica lunellum / lunarium to use for the purposes of working the skin.

Instead, I hacked an alternative that worked fairly well: a typical pizza wheel provides a curved, sharp blade quite suitable for this task, and is less than $10 in most cases. © Sara Elaine Jackson

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C U R AT E D BOOKMARKS BBC This article discusses the identification of the scribes of the Lincoln and Salisbury exemplifications in advance of the 800th anniversary.

CANTERBURY TIMES A local paper covers the discovery by scholars that the badly damaged Cotton manuscript of Magna Carta was originally in the possession of Canterbury Cathedral.

STANFORD REPORT The university paper at Stanford chronicles the important independent discovery of evidence supporting the scribal attribution of the Salisbury copy.

M a g n a C a r t a : A L e g a c y o f L i b e r t y, R e f r a m e d & R e w r i t t e n

http://www.bbc.com/ news/uk-33122722

http://www. canterburytimes.co.uk/ Revealed-Canterburys-copy-Magna-Carta/ story-25893372detail/story.html

http://news.stanford. edu/news/2015/ september/magna-cartascribe-090115.html

APPENDICES

https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=7vKWsB_ mmR0

MIKE ROWE, DIRTY JOBS Check out this clip from an episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike Rowe visited Pergamena to find out exactly what it takes to make parchment, and just how dirty a job it really can be.

http://www. instructables. com/id/How-toMake-a-WritingQuill/?ALLSTEPS

INSTRUCTABLE This website offers quick how-to explanations related to a variety of different activities, such as this one, which provides a guide for tempering your own authentic writing quill.

http://www. instructables.com/id/ Making-Iron-GallInk/?ALLSTEPS

INSTRUCTABLE This Instructable gives detailed instructions for how you can create iron gall ink, the same type of ink commonly used in manuscript production in the Middle Ages.

http://www. smithsonianmag.com/ history/how-magnacarta-went-viral180955550/?no-ist

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SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE This is a great article that talks about how Magna Carta went “viral,” essentially how the four extant copies discussed earlier in this presentation arrived in their respective medieval home institutions, insofar as we know where each originally resided.

© Sara Elaine Jackson

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November 2015