Justice Ministers visit 800-year-old ice-breaker

(JB) EU Justice Ministers will be treated to an unusual ice-breaker when they visit a copy of the 1217 Magna Carta and King John's 1215 Writ in Luxembourg between meetings later this week.

The Magna Carta, which is one of only four copies still in existence and the Writ, which is the only one of its kind to have survived, are on loan to the British Embassy in Luxembourg from their permanent home in Hereford Cathedral, England.

“We knew it was the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta and I heard that one could travel. The obvious place to display it was in the Palace of justice because it's the seat of modern justice,” British Ambassador to Luxembourg Alice Walpole said, adding: “At the end of the week, the Justice council is coming and all the EU justice ministers will come to town. It's the first time our new Justice Minister, Michael Gove, will attend. So they will come here and take a look.”

The two immaculately well-preserved documents were written by one of King John's chancery in a kind of latin short-hand on sheepskin using an ink composed of iron filings and oak gall.

“It makes an incredibly distinct ink which eats its way into the parchment. In fact, it gets darker with age,” said Hereford's Canon Chris Pullin, who accompanied the documents on their tour.

To preserve them in their current state, both are kept in a cabinet in which the temperature is controlled. The documents also have a limited number of “light hours” each year during which they can be displayed.

The 1215 Magna Carta signed by King John in Runnymede was a kind of peace treaty which for the first time set out terms to protect the customary rights of free subjects from the king.

Among its most famous clauses is the seventh: “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned or stripped of his rights or possession or outlawed or exiled or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we condemn him but by lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.”

The 1215 Writ was sent a day after the charter was signed to every sheriff in every county in England to prepare them for the arrival of the new legislation.

“The most important thing was to appoint knights to begin investigating vile practices of the king's offices. The recipient didn't know he was someone named to be removed from office,” Canon Pullin explained.

The 1215 Writ on display in Luxembourg was originally sent to the then Sheriff of Gloucester, who covered Hereford at the time. The sheriff was deposed only to be later appointed constable of Windsor Castle, the Canon explained.

While the Magna Carta was not successful as a peace treaty, today it is widely considered as a precursor to modern respect for human rights.

The week-long exhibition hosted at the Court of Justice of the European Union is open to private visitors only for security reasons.

The British Embassy has, however, arranged tours of the two documents with a number of schools, business people and others including Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and Grand Duke Henri.

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