Description:
...here is a law which is above the King and which even he must not break. This reaffirmation of a supreme law and its expression in a general charter is the great work of Magna Carta; and this alone justifies the respect in which men have held it.
--Winston Churchill, 1956
Magna Carta and statutes of the realm with register of writs, in Latin and Anglo-Norman, Decorated Manuscript on Vellum.
98 x 72 mm, 219 leaves (including ten blanks), MAGNA CARTA AND THE STATUES OF ENGLAND. Latin and Anglo-Norman Manuscript on Vellum. C. 1300. 219 leaves (including ten blanks), gathered mostly in 8s. 98 x 72 mm. English cursive and charter scripts in a variety of hands; brown ink. Approximately 25 4-to-5 line initials in red and blue with extensions; one larger 6-line initial with infill at beginning. CONTEMPORARY CALF OVER WOODEN BOARDS WITH ORIGINAL TIE AND BOSS CLASP.
THE CORNERSTONE TEXTS OF ANGLO-AMERICAN LAW.
The confirmation of Magna Carta in the 1290s encouraged the production of handbooks of parliamentary statutes for use by officers and lawyers. The dating of the present document is based on its script and the statutes included, as well as its use of Anglo-Norman. The present 'pocketbook' manuscript is Exceptional for retaining its Original Binding, and is highly desirable for containing Anglo-Norman text. Realistically speaking, handbook manuscripts such as the present constitute the earliest obtainable form of Magna Carta and English law. Manuscripts of such early date are Very Rare in the marketplace.
Pocket-size Manuscripts such as the present were designed to be sufficiently small and compact to carry in the pocket of a lawyer's robe. The use of Anglo-Norman text (vs. French) strongly suggests the manuscript was intended for use within England; and indeed, a near-contemporary note at the end -- "Hendley" -- suggests the manuscript was owned by a London lawyer with links to Henley.
CONTENTS:
1-9r: register (in 2 hands);
10r-22r: Magna Carta;
22r-27v: Charter of the Forest;
28r-34v: Statute of Merton;
34r-51r: Statute of Marlborough;
51v-61r: Statute of Gloucester;
61v-97r: Statute of Westminster;
97v-159v: Statute of Westminster II;
159v-161r: Statute of Westminster III;
161r-162v: Statute of Clerics;
164r-164v: View of Frankpledge;
164v-168v: Statute of Warrants(?);
168v-176r: Statute of Warrants;
176r-182v: Statute of Warrants;
176r-182v: Statute of Merchants;
182v-184r: Distraints;
184r-185r: Prohibitions;
185r-187r: Statute of Bigamy;
187-193: Prerogatives;
193r-195v: Statute of Gascons;
195v-end: various statutes.
A FINE EARLY COMPENDIUM OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF ENGLISH LAW
PROVENANCE:
1.
By combining the Statutes, which where the basis of common law,
and a collection of writes, on which new actins in the pursuit of justice were
modeled, the present manuscript provided the essential texts for
understanding and affecting medieval law. Although the majority of legal
manuscripts are likely to have been owned by lawyers they also belonged
to merchants, landowners, churchmen and estate officials. By the 15th
century workshops associated with the Inns of Court specialized in the production of such books, but at the date of this manuscript they were probably written by the chancery clerks whose main responsibility was the issuing of writs.
2.Included note found in the pages of the manuscript indicate significant finds. Closer examination reveals ownership.
3.Rogers Ruding (1751-1820), numismatist and author of Annals of the Coinage of Britain and its dependencies; from the earliest period to the end of the fiftieth year of the reign of his present Majesty, London 1817-19: Ruding owned another legal manuscript, a Forulore Brevium, now in Harvard Law Library (de Ricci, p. 1004, no 22) that was subsequently owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps. This is a hypothesis.
4.A near-contemporary note at the end -- "Hendley" -- suggests the manuscript was owned by a London lawyer with links to Henley.
CONTENTS
By issuing Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215 King John bound himself and all of England’s future sovereigns to the rule of law. The terms of the Great Charter were refined and confirmed by John and his 13th-century successors, guaranteeing the rights and liberties of all freemen of the kingdom; it became the foundation of English common law and remained the most fundamental part of enacted law until the 18th century. It owed its continued and widespread importance to the interpretation of Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), Attorney General to Elizabeth I and Chief Justice of James I of England. It was through the publication of his view – ‘Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign’ – when he marshaled it in argument against the actions and power of Charles I of England that it came to inspire the charters for the American colonies. The colonies later turned to it to justify revolution against British policy: the Massachusetts Assembly invoked it in declaring the 1765 Stamp Act null and void, and on the eve of revolution adopted a new seal showing a militia man with a sword in one hand and Magna Carta in the other. The American Bar Association erected a monument at Runnymede in 1957 in acknowledgement of Magna Carta’s importance for American Law and constitutionalism. The earliest Statute Roll dates from 127B and by the late thirteenth century collections of the enrolled Statutes of the Realm began to be produced in book-form. The present manuscript is an early example of one of these.
More information on the Magna Carta can be viewed by clicking here
