STANFORD, CALIFORNIA—Handwriting analysis has led to new thoughts about how government documents were produced and distributed in medieval England. Literary scholar Elaine Treharne of Stanford University noticed that the handwriting that produced the Register of St. Osmund, a document produced at Salisbury Cathedral and held in its archive, resembled one of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta, which was issued by King John in 1215. She examined the letters, punctuation, abbreviations, the angle of the pen, and the number of strokes taken to produce each character in the two documents. She concluded that the cathedral scribe that wrote the Register of St. Osmund also produced the Salisbury Magna Carta. “It makes us look again at the role of the church in relationship to the king. They become much more partners, really, in the production of texts,” Treharne said in a press release. She thinks that versions of the Magna Carta “were written in the regions and then taken to the court for sealing by the king’s Great Seal.” It had been thought that copies of the Magna Carta had been produced in the central court and then distributed to satellite locations. To read more about medieval England, go to "Vengeance on the Vikings."
