THERE are just days to go until Durham’s Magna Carta goes on public display for the first time in its 799-year history. Mark Tallentire meets the academic curator, Dr Christian Liddy

“WE all have it within us to become rebels. The line between being a rebel and being a citizen is often a very fine one.”

So says Dr Christian Liddy, a senior lecturer in Durham University’s history department and academic curator of Magna Carta and the Changing Face of Revolt, which opens at Palace Green Library on Monday, June 1.

For Dr Liddy, Magna Carta is important of itself – and Durham Cathedral’s unique 1216 copy going on public display for the first time in its 799-year history to mark the 800th anniversary of the signing of the original charter is hugely exciting.

But it’s also part of a long-running story of resentment, unrest and struggle – a story that is still unfolding today.

“It’s about people having rights and making claims, resisting authority, asserting freedoms,” the silver-haired academic tells me over a cup of tea in the Library cafe.

“It’s one moment, but part of a wider struggle – and it’s that aspect of protest that I want to get across. These rights have been achieved through conflict – sometimes violent conflict; and these struggles aren’t over.”

Hence the much-anticipated three-month exhibition will take visitors through 800 years of revolt, right from 1215 at Runnymede through to the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement.

And it will conclude with an immersive experience of rebellion. Dr Liddy, desperate though he is to say more, just about manages to keep the details under wraps. More will be revealed soon. But it promises to change the way visitors think about historic exhibitions.

The exhibition is just the centrepiece of a wider programme of supporting events planned for the summer. Television historian David Starkey will give a talk on Magna Carta and the British constitution on Friday, June 5; Professor Nicholas Vincent from the University of East Anglia will speak about Durham’s role in the story on Thursday, July 2; and Dr Liddy himself will discuss citizen politics on Wednesday, July 8.

There will be four free public lectures and the Cathedral will host a medieval family fun weekend on August 8 and 9 and the world premiere of The Great Charter, a new opera inspired by Magna Carta, on Saturday, June 13.

There will be a special Evensong service on Sunday, June 14, and the Library will host themed children’s activities each weekend in June.

So what is Magna Carta about, and why should we care?

“King John was a tyrant – an over-mighty king,” Dr Liddy explains.

“He was engaged in conflict with France and raising money by what we would now call illegal means.”

So England’s barons, the political class of the time, were extremely unhappy.

“But they didn’t just get rid of him and put another king in his place – they said he could stay, but they drew up their demands; their manifesto.

“That’s quite interesting – it’s about holding a ruler to account; saying there are some things they can’t do. Saying: ‘You’re a powerful man, but you’re not as powerful as the law’.”

In early May, the restless barons meet in Northamptonshire and renounce their loyalty to John – setting up the historic June meeting at Runnymede, where the King is forced to seal the agreement now known as Magna Carta.

Written in Latin on parchment from a King to his country, it contains 63 clauses covering everything from the principle of the King needing consent for taxation, which arguably leads to the emergence of Parliament, to the importance of the law, which arguably leads to our system of trial by jury.

“Some of it resonates today – the power of the state and the freedom of the individual,” Dr Liddy says, “But it’s also a very different, medieval world of barons and knights.”

Copies of the document are quickly sent across the country, including to religious houses.

“But as soon as it’s sealed, the King says: ‘I’m not having this’.”

He convinces the Pope to annul the deal – and the barons’ revolt resumes. But King John dies unexpectedly in 1216, his son becomes Henry III and the boy king’s advisors re-issue an amended Magna Carta –“as a kind of peace treaty”.

Durham’s is the only copy of that 1216 issue that survives today – the Cuthbert community having unusually kept its older versions of Magna Carta despite them being replaced by various re-issues, including in 1225 and 1300.

Visitors to Palace Green Library this summer will be guided through the Peasants’ Revolt, the Wars of the Roses, the Civil War, the Jacobite period, the 19th and 20th century battles for the vote, the General Strike, the Jarrow March and more.

Magna Carta and the Changing Face of Revolt is open daily from Monday, June 1 to Monday, August 31 from 10am to 6pm. Entry is by timed ticket only, costing £7.50 for adults, £6.50 for concessions and children over five and free for under fives. Family and group discounts are available. To book, call 0844-844-0444 or visit ticketmaster.co.uk/magna_carta_2015