The following is a guest post by Emm Barnes Johnstone, historian of medicine with the Centre for Public History, Heritage and Engagement with the Past at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Royal Holloway, a college of the University of London, sits just two miles from Runnymede. We are home to some of the world’s experts on Magna Carta in its thirteenth century context and on its reinterpretation and reinvigoration in the seventeenth century, so we’re invested in making the commemorations of the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta as successful as possible. This means ensuring the commemorations do not only celebrate past achievements, but show how the legacy of Magna Carta continues today.

While anniversary events on the meadows and in local towns next year will be colourful and exciting, we want to share the expertise of our academics and the beauty of Runnymede and its memorials as widely as possible in a format that can be accessed in future years. A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) seemed an obvious choice to help us connect with people interested in Magna Carta wherever they live. Working with the University of London and Coursera, a group of Royal Holloway’s historians put together a six week introductory course to take learners through the historical development of Magna Carta and its meanings. The course will encourage students to consider both the material history of Magna Carta – from original manuscripts to print and museum artefacts – and the changing international history and reception of ideas inspired by the document. The course will be offered for the first time in January 2015 and is open to everyone free of charge. Visit https://www.coursera.org/course/magnacarta to find out more and to register for the course.
The course will feature Professor Nigel Saul, a member of the Magna Carta 800th Committee’s Education subcommittee, who will discuss the context of Magna Carta’s creation in 1215 and show how reissues of Magna Carta through the thirteenth century led to the establishment of its clauses on the English statute book and the creation of Parliament. Professor Justin Champion, President of the Historical Association,