Harvard's $27 copy of Magna Carta revealed to be extremely rare original

Muri Assunção, New York Daily News on May 15, 2025

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A manuscript purchased by Harvard University as a cheap, water-stained copy of the Magna Carta is, in fact, “one of the world’s most valuable documents,” a British researcher said Thursday.

The Magna Carta (Latin for “Great Charter”) is a landmark legal document first issued by King John of England in 1215 that established limits on the power of the monarchy. Today, it’s considered one of the most important legal writings in the history of democracy.

A document believed to be a 1327 copy of the manuscript was purchased by Harvard Law School from a London book dealer in 1946 for $27.50, or about $500 today.

But as it turns out, the manuscript held in the university’s library for nearly 80 years is no cheap copy — it’s one of only seven known Magna Cartas from the year 1300.

The stunning discovery happened after David Carpenter, a professor of medieval history at King’s College London, stumbled upon a document unassumingly titled “HLS MS 172” on the school’s website.

He reached out to fellow Magna Carta scholar Nicholas Vincent, a professor of medieval history at the University of East Anglia, and sent him images of the manuscript for a second opinion.

“What do you think that is?” Vincent recalls Carpenter asking. “You know jolly well what that is. It’s clearly an original. It’s not a copy,” he said.

“My reaction was one of amazement and, in a way, awe that I should have managed to find a previously unknown Magna Carta,” Carpenter said.

A company specializing in digital research used ultraviolet light and spectral imaging to reveal details on faded pages invisible to the naked eye, and the document’s authenticity was verified.

Harvard’s stained copy of the Magna Carta is worth millions of dollars, Carpenter estimates. In 2007, an original 1297 version of the document was sold at auction in New York City for $21.3 million.

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