The tallest spire in England

The most famous thing that King John did was to sign the Magna Carta, which formed the basis of the English Law.  We watched an episode about the circumstances surrounding King John's signing of the charter from this DVD.

There are only four original copies of this document in England, one of which is held at the Salisbury Cathedral, where we visited to see the actual document.

While we were at the cathedral, we had a good look around to admire its history, architecture,

and effigies of many medieval characters.

The Tower Tour was well worth it, as we went to up the spire (the tallest in England) under the guidance of a very knowledgeable guide.  On the way up, we went through various sections of the cathedral that were otherwise inaccessible to normal visitors, and saw the buttress close up, complete with a full historical account by the guide of how various sections were put in place in the medieval period.

13th century wood nails not completely nailed in by workmen back then.

The tour has been very useful in bringing to life all that we've read about in the following books about the structure and construction of a cathedral in the Middle Ages,

as well as the documentary below:

You can find all our study related to the church in the Middle Ages here.

What about the Magna Carta?  We did see the actual copy there:

But the actual study was done at home, which I shall blog about in another history-related post next week.  Stay tuned!


This post is linked up to:
1) Look What We Did: January Link-Up
2) All Year Round Blog Carnival: Winter
3) History and Geography Meme 58
4) Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with Sunshine
5) Homeschool Mother's Journal: January 18, 2013
6) Collage Friday: It's Raining, It's Pouring!
7) It's a Wrap
8) Share it Saturday
9) The Sunday Showcase 1/19/13