This week I went on a field trip to the National Archives in Kew. We got to look at lots of great stuff. Contrary to popular believe, when handling old documents, you don't have to wear gloves. They are actually worse for the documents and make it easy to rip the pages. Clean hands are the best. They only make people wear gloves when they're being filmed for documentaries because if they don't, they get lots of angry phone calls from concerned people wondering why the specialist weren't wearing gloves.

I was the only person who had a camera with them, so our teacher, Dr. David Carpenter, made me take lots of pictures.

We all got a charter or roll and had to figure out what it was. My partner and I were able to deduce this was part of the Pipe Roll from the 10th year of King John's reign. We felt so smart.

Part of the Fine Roll. It's so long you can only uncover parts of it at a time.

This is a famous doodle on part of the Fine Roll. Every time I would start to look at something, Dr. Carpenter would call me over to take a picture of something, like this.

This is a very special picture. The first time the words, "Magna Carta," were ever used is in this roll. A scribe was writing about the magna carta, which didn't have a name at the time. In order to distinguish it from another charter he was talking about he called it the magna carta because it was physically bigger than the other one, so people would know which charter he was talking about. The name stuck. Oddly, the actual roll had never been photographed with that part. My teacher found the section and was very excited because these are the first pictures in history of the first time we see the name Magna Carta in print. I'm so glad I had my camera and got to be the one to take the picture.

In case you had a hard time finding it in the other picture, here is a closer view.

Even closer. This picture is history! I think Dr. Carpenter will put it in the book he's currently writing. I hope I get credit.

A charter during King John's reign. So pretty.

This is the same charter and next to it is a parchment that was used to draft the charter. The middle section of the roll on the right is the charter part. It's fun to see the working versus finished forms.