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Magna Carta exhibition officially opens

New exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral Credit: Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury Cathedral launches a new interactive exhibition which presents the Cathedral's copy of the Magna Carta in its medieval context, exploring its legacy, both historic and contemporary.

It opened to the public last week will be officially opened later today by Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum.

The Cathedral is home to the finest preserved of the four original copies of Magna Carta.

The 800th anniversary of the documents' signing is in June this year.

Magna Carta is not just a constitutional document: it has become in its own way an institution. And like all institutions it has been constantly reinvented.

Every generation has found what it needs for its own particular time in the words of Magna Carta and the circumstances of its signing.

In this sense it is truly an icon – a window on to a world of imagined perfection and an object on to which we project our needs and our wishes. What do we want Magna Carta to do for us today?

– Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum