2015 Magna Carta Lectures with Nicholas Vincent

Professor Nicholas Vincent – Magna Carta: The Salisbury Connection.

Salisbury Cathedral has long prided itself on its possession of an original of King John’s charter of 1215. Yet in what circumstances did this charter arrive in Salisbury? What does its preservation here tell us about the bishops who ruled Salisbury in the early thirteenth-century? And what, in general, does the distribution of originals of Magna Carta, not only from the 1215 but from half a dozen of the later thirteenth-century reissues, tell us about the meaning of this most iconic document to those of its contemporaries who brought it to birth?

Nicholas Vincent is Professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia, having come to Norwich via Oxford, Cambridge and Canterbury, He has published a dozen books and some hundred articles on various aspects of Anglo-French history. He presently co-ordinates a major Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) research project into the background and reception of Magna Carta. This has brought to light a great deal of new information on the charter, its makers and its making.

Tickets are £7 and are available by phoning 01722 424800, emailing courses@sarum.ac.uk or on the door. Follow-up seminar takes place on Saturday 16 May priced at £10. Places limited.
Lecture takes place in Salisbury Cathedral.

Subsequent lectures and seminars

Lectures: Dick Howard (7 June), Lord Igor Judge (18 June) and Lesley Smith (rescheduled, 24 July) Seminars: Nicholas Vincent (16 May) and Lesley Smith (rescheduled, 25 July)