Friday, June 20, 2014

Ancient constitution fans: Magna Carta in Canada

You may not have noticed:  next year is the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, and some Canadians are planning to tour the document across Canada.
Over the course of the past eight hundred years, most of the copies of Magna Carta have been lost. The Magna Carta Hibernae was destroyed in an explosion at Dublin’s Four Courts in 1922, during the Irish Civil War. There remain seventeen copies of the Great Charter throughout the United Kingdom and the world that predate 1300: four from 1215, one from 1216, four from 1217, four from 1225 and four from 1297. There are six known versions remaining from 1300.
You can help support the Canadian tour.

Update, June 23:  "British" or "universal" values in Magna Carta? Nigel Saul at History Today online examines.
 
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