Harvard University, better late than never! Eighty years of not realizing the treasure you’re sitting on, and now the prestigious institution is beaming. Back in 1946, Harvard purchased what it believed to be a faded “copy” of the royal Magna Carta manuscript for just $27.50 from a London book dealer. Naturally, it was assumed to be a replica, not exactly the kind of purchase you’d expect to make history.
Turns out, Harvard’s HLS MS 172 is no ordinary replica. It’s an original 13th-century document, likely worth at least $21 million. (A similar 1297 version sold for $21.3 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York in 2007.) The Magna Carta, of course, is the seminal document that placed limits on the King of England’s power and enshrined the right to a fair trial. Harvard’s version is believed to be one of just seven copies of a 13th-century iteration issued by King Edward I, according to Artnet.
“Harvard had been sitting on it for all these years without realizing what it was,” said David Carpenter, a professor of medieval history at King’s College London. In a rather serendipitous moment, Carpenter stumbled upon the digitized document on the Harvard Law School Library website in December 2023. “I’d found one of the rarest and most significant documents in world constitutional history,” he said. “It is an icon of both the Western political tradition and constitutional law.”
Carpenter then enlisted the help of Nicholas Vincent, a fellow medieval history professor at the University of East Anglia. Together, they confirmed the document’s authenticity. Interestingly, despite the document’s staggering value, Harvard has no plans to sell it. The university says it sees the discovery as an opportunity to inspire new generations to learn about the Magna Carta, a foundational text in the creation of the United States. Spoken like a truly great educational institution. No wonder Harvard is what it is.
