New Digital Exhibit: "Magna Carta, 800 Years: Rights and the Rule of Law"

To mark Constitution Day, and in celebration of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, the University of Minnesota Law Library has digitized its year-long exhibit, "Magna Carta, 800 Years: Rights and the Rule of Law." In addition, the digital site features a virtual showcase for the Library's collection of early printed editions of Magna Carta, the earliest of which dates to 1514. Drawn from the treasures of the Library's Arthur C. Pulling Rare Books Collection, the exhibit includes over seventy-five works that reflect and illuminate the deep influence of Magna Carta on the Anglo-American legal tradition.

Viewed through cases, texts and ideas that were shaped by Magna Carta, the exhibit traces the document's impact on the development of rights and the rule of law in England and early America, and its emergence on a global stage. Through the exhibit visitors are invited to explore the history, challenges and promise of Magna Carta, rights and the rule of law, in its first eight hundred years.

The digital exhibit was designed and curated by Glen Anderson, Barbara Berdahl, Patrick Graybill and Ryan Greenwood.

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

New Rare Acquisitions!

Hayward's Confession (Minneapolis, 1895)

The Riesenfeld Center has recently been fortunate to acquire several new titles for its rare books collection. Among these are three titles generously donated by Mr. William Whitlock, which include a contemporary account of the trial of Charles I, an account of the Parliament in the crucial years leading to the English Civil War, and Whitelockes Notes Uppon the Kings Writt, 2 vols. (London, 1766). The titles all bear on the conflicts between Parliament and king in tumultuous 17th-century England, and the constitutional ideas that animated them.  The volumes are terrific additions to the collection, particularly as we celebrate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta and recall the importance of the same conflicts for the rebirth of Magna Carta as a political document in the 17th-century.

Hayward's Confession joins a large collection of trials, often sensationalistic and printed for a mass audience, held at the Center. Hayward's case is interesting not only as a murder case but a local one: in 1895 Harry Hayward was convicted of murder in Minneapolis, and the trial and verdict were closely followed. Our rare account, printed as a supplement to the Minneapolis Times, represents the convicted man's final confession.  For more, and more images, see our recent Tumblr post.

Another item falls into the category of legal humor. Lawyers and the law are perennial subjects of satire, as a number of titles in our law and literature collection attest. The Law and Lawyers Laid Open (London, 1737), joins this venerable tradition. Closely related to works on law reform, the volume takes the form of a series of humorous dialogues and visions about lawyers' ethics and sharp practices.


   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

         

        

Elizabeth Pickering: The First Woman to Print Books in England

Colophon from: The Great Charter, Called in 
Latin Magna Carta ...London: Elizabeth Pickering, 1540/41.

To continue our series of posts on books related to Magna Carta, and the Library's collection of early printed Magna Cartas, one of the Library's editions was printed by a woman named Elizabeth Pickering (or Pykeryng). This might seem striking in the period, and it is. Elizabeth Pickering was the first woman in England to print books that survive today. Her edition of Magna Carta (1540/41), stands with Granville Sharp's copy of Magna Carta and the second printed edition of the Great Charter, from 1514, as the most notable editions that the Library owns. Widow of noted law printer Robert Redman, Pickering took over her husband’s printing press on his death in October 1540. At least two women are known to have printed earlier works, but these have not survived, while Pickering produced as many as thirteen titles that have come down to us. Ten are directly attributable to her, and three others may be hers as well. 

Pickering's first book, A Lytle Treatyse Composed by Iohn Sta[n]dysshe, with a colophon dated December 13, 1540, was printed at her shop at the "sygne of the George" in London's Fleet Street, where her husband also printed. Pickering continued publishing under her own name until transferring her press to William Middleton, on her remarriage to William Cholmeley in 1541. In our Magna Carta, Pickering employs Robert Redman’s monogram, and clearly identifies herself as the book’s printer in the colophon. Pickering printed her edition of Magna Carta in English, as Redman had done for the first time in 1534, and helped spread its tenets to a wider audience. We are fortunate to have one of her most remarkable works in the collection, and as a centerpiece of our current exhibit.

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

Granville Sharp, Early Champion of Abolitionism

Magna Charta cum statutis (London: Richard
Tottell, 1556)

One of the Law Library's most prized copies of Magna Carta was once owned by Granville Sharp (1735-1813), a founder of the abolitionist movement. At the top of the title page of one of our 16th-century Magna Cartas can be seen "Ex libris, Granville Sharp, 1760." Apparently acquired by Sharp when he was twenty-five, the volume may have had an important influence on him. Largely an autodidact, Sharp taught himself Hebrew and Greek and joined in learned theological disputes with Oxford dons. He is still known today for "Sharp's Rule," a principle of Biblical translation. He also developed a considerable knowledge of English law despite never training as an attorney.

Sharp's involvement with abolitionism developed through his brother, a physician, who treated the slave Jonathan Strong in London after he had been badly abused. Sharp sought the man's release in court, and later published the first significant anti-slavery tract in England, A Representation of the Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of Tolerating Slavery (1769). He was also a motive force behind the famous Somersett case (1772), in which Chief Justice Mansfield ruled that James Somersett could not be sent back into colonial slavery from English soil. In the same period, Sharp corresponded with American abolitionists, including Anthony Benezet, and stirred a young movement. Sharp's keen and well-researched interest in the legal dimensions of English liberty—which may trace to his reading of our copy of Magna Carta—established part of his commitment to freedom and human rights.  

Sharp's underlining at clause 29 of
Magna Carta.

Sharp underlined and annotated his copy of Magna Carta at important passages. Notably he underlined Magna Carta's famous clause 29 (from the 1225 Magna Carta), which we take as a basis of due process: "No freeman is to be taken or imprisoned or disseized of his free tenement or of his liberties or free customs, or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go against such a man or send against him save by lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell or deny or delay right or justice." Sharp considered these key provisions of Magna Carta as natural and inalienable rights.

Sharp eventually authored more than sixty works on topics ranging from anti-slavery, the divinity of Christ, and even the right of the American colonists to take part in the English legislature, the latter another issue linked to rights set out in Magna Carta.

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

Henry Care in England and America

Henry Care, English Liberties (Providence, 1774)

Our current exhibit, “Magna Carta, 800 Years: Rights and the Rule of Law,” features eight editions of Magna Carta printed before 1600. Only one other exhibit title is represented by multiple copies: Henry Care’s English Liberties, or The Free-Born Subject’s Inheritance. Originally published in England in 1680, English Liberties was first printed in Boston in 1721 by James Franklin (Ben’s older brother). The Library owns five copies of Care’s title, three printed in London in 1680, 1682, and 1719, and two printed in Boston and Providence, in 1721 and 1774, respectively.

Although Henry Care (1646-88) intended his work for the English public, English Liberties was very popular in North America. Care compiled Magna Carta, the Charter of the Forest, the Habeas Corpus Act, and other statutes that addressed royal abuses of power, and the pamphlet was widely distributed in the colonies. It is credited with playing an important role in advancing the cause for the American Revolution through its accessible message about English law, government, liberties, and juries.

Among the library’s copies of Care’s English Liberties, one copy is notable for its printing date and an interesting scrap of a newspaper that can be found inside.  Our 1774 copy of the book, printed by John Carter shortly after the Boston Tea Party, is significant for its appearance and influence at a key moment in American history.  The clipping, on the other hand, is part of a 19th-century editorial that opposes General Winfield Scott Hancock’s 1880 presidential candidacy, due to his actions during Reconstruction. Appointed by President Andrew Johnson, Hancock replaced General Sheridan, a sympathizer with the North, and was charged to oversee the Fifth Military District in 1867.  Hancock (1824-1886) was responsible for writing General Order No. 40, which restored the right to trial by jury, habeas corpus, liberty of the press, freedom of speech, civil liberties, and rights of property.  Critics pointed out, however, that Hancock also empowered the vanquished southern Democrats to take up old positions of power.   

   - Barbara Berdahl, Assistant Special Collections Librarian 

Magna Carta Across the Atlantic

Portrait of John Wilkes by Hogarth (1763)

In the Riesenfeld Center's current exhibit, "Magna Carta, 800 Years: Rights and the Rule of Law," several items highlight the political dialogue between England and the American colonies on the eve of revolution. Colonists sought to assert what they saw as their essential English rights against an overreaching British government, and those asserted rights expanded in the 18th century. Some had early origins - the colonial slogan "No taxation without representation," referred to a principle of consent to taxation that traced back to Magna Carta. That argument found some favor in England, just as opposition to broad search warrants, and support for free political speech and expanded religious freedom, echoed across the Atlantic in sympathetic circles.

Political radical and nonconformist John Wilkes (1725-97), was one English figure who became a symbol of rights and liberty on both sides of the Atlantic. Starting as an incendiary journalist, Wilkes went on to a political career that saw him successively expelled from the Commons, exiled from England and imprisoned. As a savvy and ambitious politician, Wilkes took up the discourse of liberty and rights as adeptly as anyone in the period. During his career he resisted broad arrest warrants - also a colonial grievance - and defended his own privilege as a member of Parliament against arrest for libel. Partly in response to his enemies, he also supported the publication of direct reports of Parliamentary debates, and the cause of freer speech eventually won out. At his height and after, the popular slogan "Wilkes, Liberty and No. 45!" captured Wilkes's deep appeal as an opposition figure.

In America, Wilkes was popular prior to the war and had support from the likes of John Adams, John Hancock and James Otis. William Hogarth's satirical portrait of Wilkes, depicting him as a devilish figure holding a tall pole with a cap on top, has become his iconic image. The objects in his hand are the liberty pole and Phrygian cap, symbols of freedom that were likewise used in the colonies in opposition to British rule. One of our current exhibit books, Magna Carta, Opposed to Assumed Privilege… (1771), shows these symbols stamped on its spine, and it is no coincidence. The book treats the controversy over printing Parliamentary debates, and Wilkes's role in it. Invoking Magna Carta in the book's title was a first calculated appeal, to which the elegant blue morocco binding, with liberty poles and caps, added another recognizable sign for those in the know.

   - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections

Magna Charta, Opposed to Assumed Privilege (London, 1771)

 

Library Celebration, April 29th - Last Day of Classes and Law Day!

What could be better than the last day of classes?  Or celebrating Law Day two days early?  How about cake, cookies, chips and drinks into the bargain?

Come celebrate the last day of classes next Wednesday, April 29th, from 12 - 2pm in the library lobby.  Enjoy good food and good company, and take a deserved break before finals.

Law Day and Last Day of Classes Celebration

April 29th, 12 - 2pm
Law Library Lobby

You've worked hard all year.  It's not too early to come celebrate!

(Law Day is also coming early, but it's another good chance to celebrate Magna Carta and all things constitutional!)