Lincoln Cathedral publishes “Magna Carta: the Lincoln Story”
Lincoln Cathedral has published a new, concise book about Magna Carta’s history and significance in advance of the 800th anniversary celebrations in 2015. Magna Carta: the Lincoln Story is more than a guide book. It tells the little-known story of the way in which Lincolnshire’s people and places were closely involved in events leading up to Runnymede, in the civil war afterwards, and in the continuing recognition of Magna Carta as an icon of civil rights.
Did you know that Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, known as the ‘chief architect of Magna Carta’ was from Langton by Wragby in Lincolnshire? And that a bishop of Lincoln, Hugh of Wells, who was present at Runnymede, set up the first system of record keeping in any English diocese, and it is down to him that the Lincoln Cathedral 1215 Lincoln Magna Carta survives? Or that if in the civil war after King John rejected Magna Carta, Prince Louis and the rebellious barons had not been defeated by royalist forces at Lincoln Castle in the Battle of Lincoln Fair in May 1217, we might all be speaking French today? These are just a few of the fascinating and crucial Lincolnshire connections with the document of civil liberties regarded above all others, Magna Carta.
During the centuries which followed its first issue, Magna Carta became a rallying cry of the people when the monarch was deemed to be ruling without their consent. Parliamentary democracy grew out of the rights enshrined in this document. Magna Carta principles entered the constitutions of emerging nations, most directly that of the United States of America. When Lincoln Cathedral’s exemplar of the 1215 Magna Carta sojourned in the United States during the Second World War, it was seen by 15 million people, and when it has been taken to the US on later trips, it has elicited a similar reverence. This medieval English royal charter, originally in force for only about nine weeks, has come to be seen as a global foundation document upholding civil rights, due process of law, and the right of the individual to a fair trial, without undue detention or delay.
The authors are the medieval historian Dr Nicholas Bennett FSA, F.R. Hist. Soc., recently retired as Lincoln Cathedral Librarian, who continues at Lincoln Cathedral as the Keeper of the Muniments; and Mrs Carol Bennett MA, an art and architectural historian, and Lincoln Cathedral Education Officer, who was a contributor to and editor of Stained Glass of Lincoln Cathedral (Scala, 2012).
[Magna Carta: the Lincoln Story, by Carol and Nicholas Bennett, published by Lincoln Cathedral Publications and Pitkin Publishing. Consisting of 50 well-illustrated pages, its text is of interest to the general reader and specialist alike. It is on sale at Lincoln Cathedral Shop, Lincoln Castle Shop and elsewhere, priced at £6.99.]
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