{"id":119176,"date":"2025-05-15T15:03:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T23:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/15\/harvard-law-got-the-steal-of-the-century-2\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T15:03:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T23:03:39","slug":"harvard-law-got-the-steal-of-the-century-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/15\/harvard-law-got-the-steal-of-the-century-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvard Law Got The Steal Of The Century"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a certain thrill to thrift store shopping \u2014 maybe you\u2019ll find some real Westmoreland milk glass, or a Thierry Mugler blazer in exactly your size. And you might find an absolute killer of a deal. But know it will never be as great as the find that Harvard Law made.<\/p>\n

Back in 1946, the Harvard Law library shelled out $27.50 for a \u201csomewhat rubbed and damp-stained\u201d copy of the Magna Carta. But it turns out it\u2019s actually an original from King Edward I\u2019s 1300 re-issue of the document \u2014 one of just seven known to exist.\u00a0King\u2019s College London medieval history professor David Carpenter was the first to suspect that Harvard Law had the real deal \u2014 something he notes is a \u201cfantastic discovery.\u201d Reuters details<\/a> how he confirmed his suspicions:<\/p>\n

\n

Carpenter was studying unofficial Magna Carta copies when he saw a digitized version of Harvard\u2019s document and suspected it could be an original. He teamed up with medieval history professor Nicholas Vincent from the University of East Anglia to dig into the origins of the document, comparing it to the six other known Magna Cartas from 1300, each of which was written by hand.<\/p>\n

The text of Harvard\u2019s document matched up perfectly with the 1300 originals, as did its dimensions, the researchers said. The handwriting also lined up, with a large capital \u201cE\u201d at the start of \u201cEdwardus\u201d and elongated letters in the text\u2019s first line.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s an ironic twist that an historic relic that\u2019s the foundation of American liberties was found at Harvard, which thanks to the Trump administration, is a focal point of the battle over said liberties \u2014 something Vincent noted, \u201cGiven where it is, given present problems over liberties, over the sense of constitutional tradition in America, you couldn\u2019t invent a provenance that was more wonderful than this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now onto the hard dollars and cents. How much is this document actually worth? Well, back in 2007, an\u00a0original Magna Carta from 1297 sold for $21.3 million. Now, that can\u2019t replace the $2.2 billion in federal funding Trump swiped from the school, but it is a nice start.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Harvard Law Got The Steal Of The Century<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a certain thrill to thrift store shopping \u2014 maybe you\u2019ll find some real Westmoreland milk glass, or a Thierry Mugler blazer in exactly your size. And you might find an absolute killer of a deal. But know it will never be as great as the find that Harvard Law made.<\/p>\n

Back in 1946, the Harvard Law library shelled out $27.50 for a \u201csomewhat rubbed and damp-stained\u201d copy of the Magna Carta. But it turns out it\u2019s actually an original from King Edward I\u2019s 1300 re-issue of the document \u2014 one of just seven known to exist.\u00a0King\u2019s College London medieval history professor David Carpenter was the first to suspect that Harvard Law had the real deal \u2014 something he notes is a \u201cfantastic discovery.\u201d Reuters details<\/a> how he confirmed his suspicions:<\/p>\n

\n

Carpenter was studying unofficial Magna Carta copies when he saw a digitized version of Harvard\u2019s document and suspected it could be an original. He teamed up with medieval history professor Nicholas Vincent from the University of East Anglia to dig into the origins of the document, comparing it to the six other known Magna Cartas from 1300, each of which was written by hand.<\/p>\n

The text of Harvard\u2019s document matched up perfectly with the 1300 originals, as did its dimensions, the researchers said. The handwriting also lined up, with a large capital \u201cE\u201d at the start of \u201cEdwardus\u201d and elongated letters in the text\u2019s first line.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s an ironic twist that an historic relic that\u2019s the foundation of American liberties was found at Harvard, which thanks to the Trump administration, is a focal point of the battle over said liberties \u2014 something Vincent noted, \u201cGiven where it is, given present problems over liberties, over the sense of constitutional tradition in America, you couldn\u2019t invent a provenance that was more wonderful than this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now onto the hard dollars and cents. How much is this document actually worth? Well, back in 2007, an\u00a0original Magna Carta from 1297 sold for $21.3 million. Now, that can\u2019t replace the $2.2 billion in federal funding Trump swiped from the school, but it is a nice start.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her<\/a> with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Harvard Law Got The Steal Of The Century<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a certain thrill to thrift store shopping \u2014 maybe you\u2019ll find some real Westmoreland milk glass, or a Thierry Mugler blazer in exactly your size. And you might find an absolute killer of a deal. But know it will never be as great as the find that Harvard Law made. Back in 1946, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":119177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-X5TJcL.jpeg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}