Memory of the World: The treasures that record our history from 1700 BC to the present day. UNESCO
fire in 1731; nevertheless, this is the only copy to retain a trace of the royal seal. The others are in Lincoln and Salisbury and are assumed to be the copies sent to those towns.
The charter sought to establish boundaries to kingship. Its intent was to limit the king’s money-making operations, make his justice more equitable, reform the abuse of his local agents and prevent his acting in an arbitrary fashion against individuals. Although it initially failed to end the conflict between the barons and the king, the subsequent issues of Magna Carta have assured that its long-term effects on English legal and social history have been profound.
However, Magna Carta as it has come to be interpreted reaches far beyond its immediate context of 13th-century England. It was cited in the 17th century as a factor in the Parliamentarians’ struggle against King Charles I, in the American colonists’ fight for independence from Great Britain in the 18th century and in the subsequent American Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Its renown grew with the spread across the world of the British Empire and it still endures as an icon of hope for those who consider themselves oppressed today.
Printing woodblocks of the Tripitaka Koreana and miscellaneous Buddhist scriptures
Inscribed 2007
What is it
The Tripitaka Koreana is a Korean collection of the Tripitaka or Buddhist scriptures which were carved onto 81,258 wooden printing blocks in the 13th century. The collection is stored at Haeinsa Monastery in southwest Korea.
Why was it inscribed
The Tripitaka Koreana is the only existing example of a Tripitaka in the form of wooden blocks and the only complete canon of Buddhist scriptures still extant on the Asian mainland. The Tripitaka and the associated scriptures at Haeinsa Monastery are examples of the best printing and publishing techniques of the period.
Where is it
Haeinsa Monastery, South Gyeongsang province, Republic of Korea
The Tripitaka, or Daejanggyeong in Korean, refers to the collection of Buddhist scriptures, or Buddhist canon, that relate to discourses with the Buddha, regulations of monastic life and commentaries on the sutras by renowned monks and scholars. The Tripitaka Koreana is the oldest extant complete canon of Buddhist scripture edited, compiled and collated from the various contemporary Tripitakas that did not survive to the present.
After Buddhism was transmitted to East Asia through China and Buddhist scriptures were translated from various Indian and Central Asian languages into classical Chinese (the lingua franca of educated discourse throughout East Asia, including Korea), several countries tried to inscribe them in wooden printing blocks for distribution. However, the Tripitaka Koreana is the only complete canon still extant on the mainland of Asia.
The first edition of the Tripitaka was begun in 1011 and completed in 1087. However, it was destroyed in 1234 during a Mongol invasion. The Goryeo royal dynasty of Korea (AD 918–1392) commissioned the production of another Tripitaka in 1236. According to inscriptions on the blocks, as many as 1800 scribes worked on the job, which was completed in 1251. This edition is the Tripitaka Koreana and from these printing blocks, the monastery continually printed, published and distributed new copies whenever the need arose.
Each of the 81,258 blocks was meticulously prepared and individually inscribed with care and regularity. The blocks are 24.2 cm long, 69.7 cm wide, 3.6 cm thick and weigh about 3.5 kg. They exemplify the pinnacle of East Asian woodblock printing techniques and their durability is such that the blocks can still print crisp, complete copies of the Tripitaka, more than 760 years after their creation. All other woodblock Tripitakas have since been destroyed or lost.
A monk holds a block of the Tripitaka Koreana.
Haeinsa Monastery
The quality of its editing, compilation and collation mean the Tripitaka Koreana is acknowledged as the most accurate of the Tripitakas written in classical Chinese. A standard critical edition for East Asian Buddhist scholarship, it has been widely distributed and used over the ages. Many of the works it contains exist nowhere else in the world.
Also listed on the Register is Haeinsa Monastery’s collection of 5987 individual woodblocks of miscellaneous Buddhist scriptures which the monks had commissioned directly to supplement the Tripitaka. These included Buddhist scriptures and precepts, as well as research work in Buddhism, Buddhist history, discourses and narratives by notable Buddhist monk-scholars, and various Buddhist illustrations and iconography.
These wooden printing blocks became a medium through which knowledge could be produced and distributed continuously. As a result, the monastery became a central locus for the traditional practice of knowledge transmission, where Buddhist education and scholastic research could be conducted.
Even today, Haeinsa Monastery carries on this tradition as a centre of Buddhist scholastic study, as the designated Dharma-Jewel Monastery of Korea, responsible for the teaching and transmission of the Dharma which is one of the Three Precious Jewels of Buddhism – the Buddha, the Dharma (his teachings) and the Sangha (the community of monks and nuns).
Inscribed 2011
What is it
A richly illuminated Latin Bible in three volumes, made in 1255 for Hamburg Cathedral.
Why was it inscribed
The Hamburg Bible is the work of a group of highly talented clerical craftsmen. The eighty-nine illuminated initial letters in the three volumes illustrate book themes and are unique both as expressions of medieval art and as a source of information on the craft and history of the medieval book.
Where is it
Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark
The Hamburg Bible is the most important document for the study of book production and book art in Europe in the 13th century. Not simply a monument of medieval bookmaking, the manuscript is a celebration by its creators of the craft of book production, and a unique expression of the medieval fascination with books.
The manuscript is in three volumes of 242, 230 and 218 leaves respectively, and starts with a full-page initial depicting the Creation at the start of Genesis, to finish with the final Book of the Apocalypse or Revelation. Together the three volumes weigh almost 40 kg.
The Bible was the work of a scribe named Karolus, working at the request of Bertoldus, dean of the Chapter of Hamburg; both are named in a dedication in all three volumes. However, the artist responsible for the eighty-nine illuminated letters is not named. The only clue to his identity is the painting of an illustrator at his desk at the letter A, starting the Book of the Apocalypse.
In addition to its initial letters decorated with Biblical scenes, the Hamburg Bible also contains a sequence illustrating how medieval books were produced, from the production and preparation of parchment to the various steps in the writing process and the painter’s work with illumination.
Although the illustration of a monk writing is popular in medieval books, depictions of other parts of the manuscript production process are rare. The sequence in the Hamburg Bible illustrates the process in more detail and with greater artistic skill than any other medieval book. Its images are commonly used to illustrate medieval bookmaking.
The nineteen scenes depicting the creation of the book are spread through all three volumes, although most are gathered in volume three. Most depict either St Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, and St Paul; St Timothy, St