I went to the place and saw the thing!
I went to Canterbury today to see the Magna Carta! It had its 800th birthday last month, as I posted at the time.
Canterbury’s copy is one of the four surviving original copies from 1215, but that wasn’t the one on display. The four Big Guys are going to the British Library. The one I saw was from Faversham in Kent and is a later issue from 1300.
Another one of this edition turned up recently in a Victorian photo album in Sandwich. It’s probably worth £10M, so do check that junk in the attic before you toss it.
This one is displayed in a darkened room in a glass case draped in black cloth. If you want to see it, you ask the boy, and he gently raises the cloth and lets you peek under it for a moment. Hence the shitty out of focus picture.
I found this process awfully funny, for some reason.
Then we went to Canterbury’s city museum, which was beyond awesome. The building was as cool as anything in it (it was the Poor Priests Hospital, built in 1373). But it was dark and none of my pictures came out, sadly.
A long and enjoyable day. My dogs are barkin’.
July 8, 2015 — 10:23 pm
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