̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Tracy Wilkinson

Images of rare Magna Carta find go online

tdk25 — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 09:26:07 +0000

A rare 14^th Century copy of Magna Carta that appears to have been unnoticed for generations, until it was uncovered during research marking the document’s 800^th anniversary, can be viewed online from today (Friday, 12 June).

̽��ֱ��copy, which is owned by St John’s College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, dates back to the reign of Edward I, and is one of just a handful of surviving statute rolls that recite clauses from the famous charter. Edward I was one of the monarchs who reissued a version of the Magna Carta, which was originally produced in 1215, during the reign of King John.

Although it had been preserved in the College archives, the manuscript appears to have been overlooked – and may indeed have been completely unknown to historians – until now. Its significance was only realised when Professor Nicholas Vincent, from the ̽��ֱ�� of East Anglia and head of the national Magna Carta Project, contacted the College to enquire about documents that be believed contained clauses from the charter.

Professor Vincent realised that the item is, in fact, an early-to-mid 14^th Century example of a type of statute roll that would have been used to circulate parts of Magna Carta throughout medieval England. While these were once commonplace, only about a dozen are known to exist today.

Ahead of the anniversary of Magna Carta, on June 15^th, the College is releasing images of the copy online along with a short accompanying film. Members of the public can also view the charter by making an appointment to visit the College archives.

̽��ֱ��document’s importance is thought to have gone undetected because no systematic attempt to collect the surviving copies of Magna Carta had been undertaken until the 800^th anniversary project was launched. Even if historians had seen a record of the St John’s copy in the past, they would probably not have recognised its significance as they would have been unaware that it was in roll form.

In fact, for statute rolls of Magna Carta to survive is very rare. Earlier generations considered the parchment of which they were made very useful for secondary purposes, including lighting fires, and even as animal feed! As a result, most such rolls were lost. Judging by the valuation of similar items at auction, the St John’s copy is thought to be worth several tens of thousands of pounds.

Although it was famously agreed to by King John at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215, much of Magna Carta had been repealed or rewritten within 10 years of its issue. Modified versions were reissued under both Henry III and Edward I, with some of the more radical clauses in particular removed.

Edward agreed to a renewal of Magna Carta in 1297, and then reissued it on 28 March 1300. ̽��ֱ��roll at St John’s College recites this 1300 reissue and may have been preserved by the Hospital of St John that once stood on part of what is now the College.

In common with various other copies of Magna Carta that have surfaced in the past, the manuscript is part of a larger document. In this case it was stitched together with a lawyer’s copy of the assize of bread and ale, a law which regulated the price, weight and quality of the bread and beer manufactured and sold in England, and was the first in British history to regulate the production and sale of food. ̽��ֱ��roll also recites clauses from the Forest Charter, which was issued as a companion document to Magna Carta in 1217 and dealt with rights of access to the royal forest.

̽��ֱ��Magna Carta Project, which is led by Professor Vincent, is a collaborative initiative between several universities that aims to track down lost originals of Magna Carta and create an online database featuring commentary, translations, and research findings about the charter. ̽��ֱ��team are sifting through hundreds of archives as part of their research.

̽��ֱ��St John’s copy is being made available to view as part of the nationwide Explore Your Archive Magna Carta campaign, in which archives around the country that have a copy of Magna Carta are being encouraged to make it available to the wider public.

Tracy Deakin, Archivist at St John’s College, said that it was not uncommon for long-forgotten historical documents to resurface from archives, many of which are being made available publically in a manner that was not possible a few decades ago. “This sort of discovery is a lot more typical than people might think,” she said. “A couple of generations back, archivists did a very different type of job and would not have been able to command the same kind of accessible detail about everything in their archive in the way that we can now.”

For more information about the St John’s College archives, including visiting times, please go to: https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/archives

Images of a rare copy of Magna Carta at St John's College are being made available to coincide with the document's 800th anniversary.

Even if historians had seen a record of the St John’s copy in the past, they would probably not have recognised its significance as they would have been unaware that it was in this form

St John's College, Cambridge

Detail from the 14th-century copy of Magna Carta at St John’s College

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Captured on film: footage of Cambridge student life during WWII

tdk25 — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 09:00:38 +0000

Shot by Malcolm Shaw of St John’s College in the early 1940s, the film gives a glimpse into what it was like to study and socialise while RAF training aircraft circled overhead and College lawns were given over to vegetables as part of the ‘dig for victory’ campaign.

̽��ֱ��amateur film depicts typical scenes of Cambridge student life, with groups of undergraduates punting, walking to lectures and playing rugby. However, reminders of wartime can be seen in the background or looming overhead. Sandbags are deployed at St John’s, evacuation drills are underway, cars are rare due to petrol rationing and RAF training planes soar in the skies above. Malcolm Shaw, providing narration in 1989 to overlay the originally silent film, declared that ‘the planes were ever-present at this time of the war.’

̽��ֱ��scenes recorded in this film reveal a Cambridge which seems largely unaffected by the war, though many of Shaw’s peers would soon take part in the conflict. Tracy Wilkinson, St John’s College Archivist, said ‘What we see in Shaw's film is the lighter side of College life. Despite his time at St John's coinciding with the outbreak of war, the sense of there still being time for leisure is evident.’

̽��ֱ��film was given to the College following the death of Malcolm Shaw in 2003, where it will be preserved for future generations of researchers. It has now been made available online as part of a wider digitisation project in the Archives following a grant from the East of England Research Council.

Educated at a grammar school in West Yorkshire, Malcolm Shaw came up to St John’s to read Natural Sciences as an undergraduate in 1939, just as war was breaking out in Europe. Throughout his time in Cambridge, Shaw recorded short snapshots of student life and Cambridge scenery. Many of the sequences which flicker on the screen in both colour and black and white images dwell on the beauty and splendour of Cambridge, even as the shadows of war are lengthening over Britain.

These images range from sunny trips to Grantchester and Babraham, sporting events such as the 1941 Cuppers Final and tennis tournaments at Girton to students climbing New Court Tower and ice skating in front of it. Most interesting, and poignant, is the footage of RAF training in preparation for the war as well as the images of many of the lawns being dug up for the ‘dig for victory’ initiative. ̽��ֱ��insight we get from the footage not only reveals what Cambridge looked like during wartime, but how its students spent their days.

Part of the film’s timeless appeal lies in its ordinariness, showing students getting on with academic and social life and having fun despite the planes and signs of wartime. Despite the archaic fashions and rigid formality of the 1940s, with students wearing suits for punting on the river and being addressed by initials and surnames, the film reveals how little life has changed for many Cambridge students today.

Two of Shaw’s sequences show students including Shaw himself climbing iconic Cambridge buildings: not under cover of darkness as the infamous ‘Night Climbers of Cambridge’ did a decade earlier, but in broad daylight. Such activities were permitted during wartime as part of fire drills and evacuation training.

In 1989 Malcolm Shaw, who went on to work in the chemicals industry, edited the disparate snapshots into a 20-minute film and added a narrative commentary of his recollections. Shaw’s closing remarks reveal his nostalgic fondness for his student years: ‘What happy days those were’, he said, ‘and relatively carefree despite the background of a country at war’.

For more information about this story, please contact Ryan Cronin, rcc40@cam.ac.uk, 01223 338711.

Previously unseen archive footage has been made available online which shows student life in Cambridge at the start of the Second World War.

Reminders of wartime can be seen in the background or looming overhead. Sandbags are deployed, evacuation drills are underway, cars are rare due to petrol rationing and RAF training planes soar in the skies above.

St John's College in the 1940s

Malcolm Shaw and the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge

An RAF training plane in the skies over Cambridge during the early days of World War II. ̽��ֱ��image is taken from Malcolm Shaw's film.

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