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History in the Library of Salisbury Cathedral

Library Review

ISSN: 0024-2535

Article publication date: 1 March 1971

50

Abstract

ON MONDAY the fifteenth of June 1215 the profligate King John came down from Windsor Castle to Runnymede to keep an important appointment with the Barons of the Realm encamped at Staines. Tall, glowering, with a paunch from licentious living he listened to the ‘Articles of the Barons’ before reluctantly affixing his Great Seal. These articles drafted in the form of a royal charter promised a return of ‘ancient and accustomed liberties’ putting an end to the arbitrary and unjust rule that the King exercised over his subjects. Thus the most famous possession of the Salisbury Cathedral Library came into existence, the ‘Magna Carta’ or Great Charter upon which our political and legal history is founded.

Citation

Udal, J. (1971), "History in the Library of Salisbury Cathedral", Library Review, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 97-99. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb020902

Publisher

:

MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 1971, MCB UP Limited

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