13th Century Document Found in Ontario

It's not exactly the Magna Carta, although it was penned around the same time, in similar Latin script, on English parchment. It's a simple document, in the legalese of the day, by which a low-to-middling noble named Robert de Clopton granted land to his son, William, in the 13th century.

Apart from its age, its most intriguing aspect is how it resurfaced all these years later: in a filing cabinet at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., during an office reorganization last summer.

For all the expertise Brock historians have since brought to bear on determining what the document says, when it was written and by whom, they still don't know the contemporary history of how it wound up in their hands.

You can read more at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/bottom-of-filing-cabinet-yields-top-drawer-discovery/article1161427/.

Comments

[Jim McMillen]

These Cloptons were ancestors, so this is a particularly interesting post. Thanks.

[Cathy Walters]

Wow ! says it all!