Marking the Magna Carta’s 800th anniversary
Caroline Parry on the challenges of bringing alive the story of a piece of medieval sheepskin parchment with dense Latin text written all over it
“Magna Carta: it’s a part-a what you’re taught at school,” sing peasants, barons, Elizabethan lawyers and American founding fathers as part of the BBC’s Horrible Histories Magna Carta special, marking the 800th anniversary of the ancient treaty.
For many people this is spot on, as they see the document as a page of distant history in a textbook that is forgotten after exams.
On 15 June it will be exactly 800 years since King John lent his seal to a peace treaty set out by the rebellious barons at Runnymede in Surrey. While that treaty ultimately failed (it was thrown out after 10 days, although it was reissued six times in the next 88 years) it sowed the seeds of liberty and, for some, democracy. For this was the first time it was suggested that no one, not even the king, was above the law.
An extraordinary array of activities will mark the anniversary, with cities and towns vying for attention to highlight their piece of Magna Carta history. Museums, libraries and heritage sites have been developing a huge range of activities, including pop-up exhibitions, touring shows, talks and specially commissioned artworks. There is also a raft of re-enactment days, plays, music and even bell peals.
There will be a special focus on 14 June, the day before the anniversary, when the whole nation will be encouraged to take part in the LiberTeas event. The ambitious idea is that people will sit down to tea to celebrate, debate or reflect on their liberties.
LiberTeas has been developed by the public engagement and learning team from the Houses of Parliament as part of its 2015 Parliament in the Making historic anniversaries programme. This is not only marking the Magna Carta anniversary but also 750 years since the De Montfort parliament, which saw elected representatives from every county and major town in England invited to parliament on behalf of their local communities for the first time.
The National Trust, which is a partner in the Liber-Teas initiative, is also focusing in the 15 June anniversary as it is responsible for the landscape at Runnymede. The anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta at the riverside site beside the Thames will be marked with a new public artwork, commissioned by the trust and Surrey County Council, by the British artist Hew Locke.
Many of this year’s anniversary events are being coordinated by the Magna Carta 800th Committee, which was set up in 2009 and is chaired by Robert Worcester, the founder of market research firm Mori. The committee set out a list of more than 100 aspirations, ranging from asking the Queen to act as patron through to commemorative coins and stamps.
“It is the biggest job I have ever taken,” says Worcester, who states that the committee has achieved “around 80%” of its aspirations. “Back in 2009 when we got started people were asking: ‘Why now?’ These things take time and it has been a long time in the planning.”
The celebrations have been backed by extensive funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), £2m from the European Regional Development Fund and £1m from the government.
Other financial support has come from private funding through sponsorship, local council money and fundraising by the Magna Carta 800th Committee itself, which has allocated grants of up to £20,000 to a range of projects.
For many of the exhibitions, the emphasis has been placed on reminding people of the freedoms that have been attributed to the Magna Carta. And a lot of time and care has been taken to engage and inspire younger audiences with this 800-year-old document written in Latin on sheepskin parchment.
“By the end of the celebrations, I want everyone, but particularly young people, to understand what it really means to have fair treatment,” Worcester says. “I want people to understand ‘due process’ and that all people are entitled to trial by jury, equal treatment and that no one is above the law.”
February’s unification event at London’s British Library, which brought together the four original surviving 1215 Magna Cartas, sparked interest across the media and kicked off the celebrations in earnest. The quartet (two belong to the library, one to Salisbury Cathedral and one to Lincoln Cathedral), went on to spend one day at Parliament before going back to their respective homes. For the Lincoln and Salisbury Magna Cartas, this means returning to new exhibitions befitting their iconic status.
At Salisbury, this is as part of a Magna Carta: Spirit of Justice, Power of Words exhibition, created by exhibition designer Haley Sharpe Design, which opened on 6 March in the newly conserved Chapter House. And on 1 April, the Lincoln Magna Carta moves into the David PJ Ross Vault in the Magna Carta: Power, Justice and Accountability exhibition, developed as part of the £22m Lincoln Castle Revealed refurbishment project.
With exhibitions taking place in a mix of venues, including cathedrals, churches, libraries and great historic halls, bringing the words of this densely written decree to life, while respecting the fabric of the buildings that are playing host, has presented some interesting challenges.
For Seif El Rashidi, the Magna Carta programme manager at Salisbury Cathedral, this meant allowing the cathedral itself to influence the content. “The cathedral isn’t just a coincidental setting,” he says. “Fortunately, the fact that the Magna Carta dealt with the struggle between justice and injustice makes it easy to link to the stories represented all around the building.”
Caterina Loriggio, the 2015 anniversaries’ senior parliamentary campaign manager, developed The Beginnings of That Freedome, an exhibition of large-scale banners that will hang in medieval Westminster Hall until late November. This is part of the Parliament in the Making programme.
“There have been exhibitions here before but the scale of this is the difference,” Loriggio says. “We chose banners because they are very practical – we can’t attach anything to the walls – and also because there is a tradition of banners in political history.”
There are 18 canvas banners, which have been created by nine artists selected through an open call, and 16 of them are more than five metres long, while two had to be shorter to fit alongside steps.
The banners show moments and movements that sowed the seeds for social change such as the 1601 Poor Law and the 1965 Race Relations Act.
“The content needed to be sensitive to the environment,” Loriggio says. “The hall played witness to events such as the Bill of Rights. The Troubles in Northern Ireland are related to that and are still relevant to how we live today. Some things did have to be changed.”
The biggest challenge for many curators involved in developing Magna Carta exhibitions was deciding what to include and what to leave out.
David Prior is the head of public services and outreach at the Parliamentary Archives and the lead curator of the Magna Carta and Parliament exhibition (9-26 February 2015), which was held at the Houses of Parliament. “We pitched it at a broad audience as everyone coming in on a tour [of the Houses of Parliament] could see it,” Prior says. “We used a combination of text and imagery to simplify it and published a booklet to go alongside it.”
Matthew Smith, the curator at Egham Museum in Surrey, was faced with a very different challenge when he began planning in November 2012 how to create an exhibition without having a copy of any of the Magna Cartas.
Instead, his programme focuses on two streams: the Magna Carta as a symbol and cornerstone for debate and, looking forward, how to leave a legacy for future generations.
“There have been limited celebrations in the past so there is not much paraphernalia to work with,” Smith says. “So we have been thinking about what it would be good to have now, so they will have it in 100 years’ time.”
Egham Museum was awarded a grant by the HLF to develop its activities, which include education and engagement programmes. There is also an exhibition at the museum, supported by pop-up displays that are being shown in the community.
The desire to offer a fresh perspective on the document has informed the content of Durham University’s Magna Carta and the Changing Face of Revolt exhibition, which opens on 1 June at the Palace Green Library. Durham Cathedral’s three Magna Cartas, from 1216, 1225 and 1300, will sit at the heart of it.
Emma Hamlett, the loans registrar and assistant exhibitions officer at Durham University, says: “The idea was to find a way in which, while acknowledging the charter’s constitutional importance, our exhibition could offer something different.”
With major events planned all around the country during 2015 and the particular focus on the 15 June anniversary, it is hoped that few will be left in any doubt of what the Magna Carta has achieved so far – even if some of the freedoms attributed to it are not always completely accurate.
To borrow from Horrible Histories again: “All hail this simple ancient law/May it survive 800 more!”
The British Library exhibition
The British Library’s Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy exhibition (until 1 September) is the centrepiece of the 2015 celebrations.
The London library’s exhibition has been four years in the making and is the largest ever exhibition to be dedicated to the Magna Carta. It features more than 2,000 items, with loans including Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence and the US Bill of Rights. But it is the library’s two 1215 Magna Cartas that are the real stars of the show.
The exhibition covers more than 800 years of history, including the pre-history and origins of the Magna Carta. It breaks down to about one-third medieval history with two thirds covering the history of the Magna Carta in the post-medieval period, including how it has been used, reinterpreted and reinvented.
The content delves deeper into Magna Carta’s influence beyond the UK, particularly in the US and the former British empire. “It is impossible to be completely comprehensive and there is a limit to the number of items that we can include,” says Claire Breay, the head of medieval and earlier manuscripts at the library and the curator of the exhibition.
Presenting medieval manuscripts in an accessible way is challenging, says Breay, so the exhibition includes translations of key excerpts and audiovisual elements to help summarise these densely written texts. An audiovisual guide for under-16 year olds, funded by the Magna Carta 800th Committee, is available for free.
It is hoped that a new work by artist Cornelia Parker, which has been commissioned by the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford, will help to draw a new audience to the library, as well as families and young people. On display from 15 May to 24 July, Parker’s 13-metre embroidery, which is based on the Magna Carta’s Wikipedia page, should be quite a sight.
For many people this is spot on, as they see the document as a page of distant history in a textbook that is forgotten after exams.
On 15 June it will be exactly 800 years since King John lent his seal to a peace treaty set out by the rebellious barons at Runnymede in Surrey. While that treaty ultimately failed (it was thrown out after 10 days, although it was reissued six times in the next 88 years) it sowed the seeds of liberty and, for some, democracy. For this was the first time it was suggested that no one, not even the king, was above the law.
An extraordinary array of activities will mark the anniversary, with cities and towns vying for attention to highlight their piece of Magna Carta history. Museums, libraries and heritage sites have been developing a huge range of activities, including pop-up exhibitions, touring shows, talks and specially commissioned artworks. There is also a raft of re-enactment days, plays, music and even bell peals.
There will be a special focus on 14 June, the day before the anniversary, when the whole nation will be encouraged to take part in the LiberTeas event. The ambitious idea is that people will sit down to tea to celebrate, debate or reflect on their liberties.
LiberTeas has been developed by the public engagement and learning team from the Houses of Parliament as part of its 2015 Parliament in the Making historic anniversaries programme. This is not only marking the Magna Carta anniversary but also 750 years since the De Montfort parliament, which saw elected representatives from every county and major town in England invited to parliament on behalf of their local communities for the first time.
The National Trust, which is a partner in the Liber-Teas initiative, is also focusing in the 15 June anniversary as it is responsible for the landscape at Runnymede. The anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta at the riverside site beside the Thames will be marked with a new public artwork, commissioned by the trust and Surrey County Council, by the British artist Hew Locke.
Many of this year’s anniversary events are being coordinated by the Magna Carta 800th Committee, which was set up in 2009 and is chaired by Robert Worcester, the founder of market research firm Mori. The committee set out a list of more than 100 aspirations, ranging from asking the Queen to act as patron through to commemorative coins and stamps.
“It is the biggest job I have ever taken,” says Worcester, who states that the committee has achieved “around 80%” of its aspirations. “Back in 2009 when we got started people were asking: ‘Why now?’ These things take time and it has been a long time in the planning.”
The celebrations have been backed by extensive funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), £2m from the European Regional Development Fund and £1m from the government.
Other financial support has come from private funding through sponsorship, local council money and fundraising by the Magna Carta 800th Committee itself, which has allocated grants of up to £20,000 to a range of projects.
For many of the exhibitions, the emphasis has been placed on reminding people of the freedoms that have been attributed to the Magna Carta. And a lot of time and care has been taken to engage and inspire younger audiences with this 800-year-old document written in Latin on sheepskin parchment.
“By the end of the celebrations, I want everyone, but particularly young people, to understand what it really means to have fair treatment,” Worcester says. “I want people to understand ‘due process’ and that all people are entitled to trial by jury, equal treatment and that no one is above the law.”
February’s unification event at London’s British Library, which brought together the four original surviving 1215 Magna Cartas, sparked interest across the media and kicked off the celebrations in earnest. The quartet (two belong to the library, one to Salisbury Cathedral and one to Lincoln Cathedral), went on to spend one day at Parliament before going back to their respective homes. For the Lincoln and Salisbury Magna Cartas, this means returning to new exhibitions befitting their iconic status.
At Salisbury, this is as part of a Magna Carta: Spirit of Justice, Power of Words exhibition, created by exhibition designer Haley Sharpe Design, which opened on 6 March in the newly conserved Chapter House. And on 1 April, the Lincoln Magna Carta moves into the David PJ Ross Vault in the Magna Carta: Power, Justice and Accountability exhibition, developed as part of the £22m Lincoln Castle Revealed refurbishment project.
With exhibitions taking place in a mix of venues, including cathedrals, churches, libraries and great historic halls, bringing the words of this densely written decree to life, while respecting the fabric of the buildings that are playing host, has presented some interesting challenges.
For Seif El Rashidi, the Magna Carta programme manager at Salisbury Cathedral, this meant allowing the cathedral itself to influence the content. “The cathedral isn’t just a coincidental setting,” he says. “Fortunately, the fact that the Magna Carta dealt with the struggle between justice and injustice makes it easy to link to the stories represented all around the building.”
Caterina Loriggio, the 2015 anniversaries’ senior parliamentary campaign manager, developed The Beginnings of That Freedome, an exhibition of large-scale banners that will hang in medieval Westminster Hall until late November. This is part of the Parliament in the Making programme.
“There have been exhibitions here before but the scale of this is the difference,” Loriggio says. “We chose banners because they are very practical – we can’t attach anything to the walls – and also because there is a tradition of banners in political history.”
There are 18 canvas banners, which have been created by nine artists selected through an open call, and 16 of them are more than five metres long, while two had to be shorter to fit alongside steps.
The banners show moments and movements that sowed the seeds for social change such as the 1601 Poor Law and the 1965 Race Relations Act.
“The content needed to be sensitive to the environment,” Loriggio says. “The hall played witness to events such as the Bill of Rights. The Troubles in Northern Ireland are related to that and are still relevant to how we live today. Some things did have to be changed.”
The biggest challenge for many curators involved in developing Magna Carta exhibitions was deciding what to include and what to leave out.
David Prior is the head of public services and outreach at the Parliamentary Archives and the lead curator of the Magna Carta and Parliament exhibition (9-26 February 2015), which was held at the Houses of Parliament. “We pitched it at a broad audience as everyone coming in on a tour [of the Houses of Parliament] could see it,” Prior says. “We used a combination of text and imagery to simplify it and published a booklet to go alongside it.”
Matthew Smith, the curator at Egham Museum in Surrey, was faced with a very different challenge when he began planning in November 2012 how to create an exhibition without having a copy of any of the Magna Cartas.
Instead, his programme focuses on two streams: the Magna Carta as a symbol and cornerstone for debate and, looking forward, how to leave a legacy for future generations.
“There have been limited celebrations in the past so there is not much paraphernalia to work with,” Smith says. “So we have been thinking about what it would be good to have now, so they will have it in 100 years’ time.”
Egham Museum was awarded a grant by the HLF to develop its activities, which include education and engagement programmes. There is also an exhibition at the museum, supported by pop-up displays that are being shown in the community.
The desire to offer a fresh perspective on the document has informed the content of Durham University’s Magna Carta and the Changing Face of Revolt exhibition, which opens on 1 June at the Palace Green Library. Durham Cathedral’s three Magna Cartas, from 1216, 1225 and 1300, will sit at the heart of it.
Emma Hamlett, the loans registrar and assistant exhibitions officer at Durham University, says: “The idea was to find a way in which, while acknowledging the charter’s constitutional importance, our exhibition could offer something different.”
With major events planned all around the country during 2015 and the particular focus on the 15 June anniversary, it is hoped that few will be left in any doubt of what the Magna Carta has achieved so far – even if some of the freedoms attributed to it are not always completely accurate.
To borrow from Horrible Histories again: “All hail this simple ancient law/May it survive 800 more!”
The British Library exhibition
The British Library’s Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy exhibition (until 1 September) is the centrepiece of the 2015 celebrations.
The London library’s exhibition has been four years in the making and is the largest ever exhibition to be dedicated to the Magna Carta. It features more than 2,000 items, with loans including Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence and the US Bill of Rights. But it is the library’s two 1215 Magna Cartas that are the real stars of the show.
The exhibition covers more than 800 years of history, including the pre-history and origins of the Magna Carta. It breaks down to about one-third medieval history with two thirds covering the history of the Magna Carta in the post-medieval period, including how it has been used, reinterpreted and reinvented.
The content delves deeper into Magna Carta’s influence beyond the UK, particularly in the US and the former British empire. “It is impossible to be completely comprehensive and there is a limit to the number of items that we can include,” says Claire Breay, the head of medieval and earlier manuscripts at the library and the curator of the exhibition.
Presenting medieval manuscripts in an accessible way is challenging, says Breay, so the exhibition includes translations of key excerpts and audiovisual elements to help summarise these densely written texts. An audiovisual guide for under-16 year olds, funded by the Magna Carta 800th Committee, is available for free.
It is hoped that a new work by artist Cornelia Parker, which has been commissioned by the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford, will help to draw a new audience to the library, as well as families and young people. On display from 15 May to 24 July, Parker’s 13-metre embroidery, which is based on the Magna Carta’s Wikipedia page, should be quite a sight.