The price of freedom is $21.3 million, at least in a manner of speaking. The only domestically-held copy of the Magna Carta, first penned in 1215 (this copy dates from 1297), was sold tonight in a Sotheby’s auction for that princely sum to David Rubenstein of The Carlyle Group, a private equity firm.

Sotheby’s vice chairman David Redden called the old but durable parchment “the most important document in the world, the birth certificate of freedom,” notable especially for its recognition of the rule of law and the transcendence of the moral order.

The document had been held by the Perot Foundation (created by H. Ross Perot) and was auctioned in order to raise funds to support the foundation’s charitable initiatives. The Perot Foundation had granted access to the copy to the National Archives, where it was on public display through September 20th of this year.

On the PowerBlog we previously noted the 790th anniversary of the Magna Carta, which was featured as the first in a series of essays in the history of liberty over the last millennium, “In the Meadow That Is Called Runnymede.”