[MUSIC] So Magna Carta, was reissued in its final definitive form in 1225. And that's when it became, as it were our basic law, the first statute on the statute book. Now what happened to it, after that? What happened to Magna Carta, in the next quarter of a century, half a century? Well we can answer those questions. By looking at this other document which we have here, in the Society of Antiquities. This beautiful parchment roll. A very neat transcription, of the 1225 version of the charter. And it tells us a number of things. First of all, the very fact that the charter was copied out on this long roll, tells us that the charter still mattered. We don't know exactly when this copy was made, it was almost certainly made for Malvern Wells-Abbey in Worcestershire. But when it was made, we don't really know, but on the evidence of the handwriting, I would guess, perhaps 1230s, 1240s, 1250s, within 20 or 30 years of 1225. The charter was still regarded as important. An Abbey wanted to have its master copy of it. The charter still mattered, that's what this tells us. But, I think it also tells us something else, because when you look at it closely you can see how beautiful it is. It's very neatly written. The initial letters of the clauses are coloured. This is a show piece copy. And note how beautifully preserved it is. The parchment is not discolored. It's immaculate. We're looking at it as it must have looked. When it was written. Now what that tells us, is that it was a document drawn up, as much as a showpiece as a practical working document. I don't think this copy of the charter was actually used very much. The charter was on its way to becoming a document more of symbolic than of actual, practical use. And that sums up for us I think, the significance of the charter in the first century of its history after 1225. Initially yes, it was useful. People wanted to have their copy of it. So, this copy for example, I think was probably used. But it was a document very much of its time. It dealt with issues that mattered to people in 1215, in 1225. But by 1250, 1270, 1300, things had moved on. It dealt with yesterday's issues, not today's issues. Increasingly over time, it was through the assertion of the power of the Parliamentary Commons, that the rights of the individual against the state were to be entrenched and embedded. Magna Carta, yes, it still mattered. It was of enormous symbolic importance. It was a document that was regarded as iconic. But as a source of practical help to the individual, it was increasingly over taken by events. It became a relic of the historic past.