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• Position: What's New? - Exhibition 'Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor'

The exhibition "Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor" is designed to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta and to illustrate the great charter's influence on laws and liberties throughout the centuries. The centerpiece of the exhibition will be the Magna Carta on loan from Lincoln Cathedral in England. The rare document and 76 items drawn from the collections at the Library of Congress will be on display through Jan. 19,2015.

"Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor"' features medieval manuscripts, published works, prints, photographs, maps, posters, and annotated draft opinions by justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Library's exhibition will show how the interpretation of the Magna Carta through the centuries led to the constitutional guarantees of individual liberty brought forth by America's Founding Fathers. It will describe how a number of the most basic principles of the Constitution--consent of the governed, the right to a trial by jury, the right to due process of law, freedom from unlawful imprisonment, and limited government under the law--can be traced to the Magna Carta. Also, liberties associated with the Magna Carta are not just for the history books; many of those liberties are still being litigated in U.S. courts today.

The exhibit's narrative starts with the creation of the Magna Carta ("Great Charter"), which was sealed in 1215 in a grassy meadow at Runnymede, by the Thames, when barons coerced King John into granting a number of rights and liberties. It will cover this conflict, the contents and purpose of the Magna Carta, and its re-issue by subsequent kings and Parliament. As the storyline continues, the exhibition will focus on the Magna Carta's rediscovery in the 17th century, when English jurists, especially Sir Edward Coke, made the Magna Carta into the fundamental source of constitutional guarantees of individual liberties; the Magna Carta's adoption and interpretation in Colonial America; and the Magna Carta's influence on the creation of American written constitutions.

The exhibition shows the relevance of the Magna Carta by tracing important areas of constitutional jurisprudence from their medieval origins through present-day litigation in the Supreme Court. A small section highlights the interpretation of the Magna Carta in...