Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Salisbury, England.

It houses the best preserved of the four remaining original copies of the Magna Carta which was issued by King John in June 1215.

Magna Carta means great charter. A charter is a legal document issued by the king or queen which guarantees certain rights. When it was issued by King John, it was an attempt to prevent a civil war between the king and his powerful barons.

The Magna Carta has 63 clauses but only three of them are still in law. The original copies were written in Latin by hand. Medieval documents were not signed but sealed. A children’s version states the most famous clause, number 39, as ‘Every free man has the right to trial by his peers and the law of the land.’

In the United States, the Fifth Amendment which says ‘no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,’ is a concept that comes from the Magna Carta.

Salisbury Cathedral played an important role during the pandemic. For the first four months of 2021, a NHS vaccine team and volunteers vaccinated over 35,000 people in the Cathedral.

The Cathedral organists played for every vaccination session during the four month period.

The NHS team did not go far. The vaccination operation moved across the street to another Cathedral building.

The Cathedral could return to in-person services and make plans for the return of visitors to this beautiful historical building. Social distancing regulations remain in place and masks must still be worn inside the Cathedral.

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