Marshall Manuscripts

Country

GB

Name of institution (official language of the state)

Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford

Language of name of institution

eng

Contact information: postal address

Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BG

Contact information: phone number

0044 1865 277162 (reader services)

0044 (0)1865 277150 (special collections)

Contact information: web address

https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/libraries/weston

Contact information: email

reader.services@bodleian.ox.ac.uk (reader services)

specialcollections.bookings@bodleian.ox.ac.uk (special collections)

Reference number

MS. Marshall

Type of reference number

Archival reference number

Title (official language of the state)

Marshall Manuscripts

Language of title

eng

Creator / accumulator

Thomas Marshall

Date(s)

9th century/17th century

Language(s)

dut

eng

fra

gre

heb

ita

lat

Extent

17.27 linear metres (157 boxes)

Type of material

Textual Material

Scope and content

This collection is composed of manuscripts collected by Thomas Marshall, covering a broad range of subjects and languages, including writings in Latin, English, Dutch, Italian, Greek, Anglo-Norman, Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Coptic, and Icelandic. The collection also contains some Oriental manuscripts. Of particular interest regarding the Sephardic context is a 15th-century collection of Hebrew exegetical texts, originally from Valladolid, Spain, with commentaries on the Bible, authored by Nachmanides and Joseph Kimhi (MS. Marshall Or. 73, Neubauer 341). The collection also holds a commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Perush Sefer ha-Midot) authored by Joseph Ben Shem Tov, dated 1487 and produced in Lisbon, Portugal (MS. Marshall Or. 12, Neubauer 1433).
Digital copies are available online:

Bodleian Library MS. Marshall Or. 73

Bodleian Library MS. Marshall Or. 12

Archival history

The manuscripts were bequeathed to the University of Oxford by Thomas Marshall in 1685 but were apparently not received until 1689-1690.

Administrative / Biographical history

Thomas Marshall (1621-1685) was born at Barkby, Leicestershire, early in January 1621. He was educated at Lincoln College, where he was successively battler (1640) and scholar (1641-1648). He graduated in 1645. Two years later, Marshall left the university and went abroad to escape the impending parliamentary visitation. He was chaplain to the company of merchant adventurers at Rotterdam from 1650 to 1672. When the merchants moved to Dort, Marshall accompanied them and remained there for 16 years.
Marshall was a philologist, studying Anglo-Saxon and Gothic. His Observationes in Evangeliorum Versiones perantiquas duas, Gothicas scil. et Anglo-Saxonicas (Dort, 1665) brought him the election to a fellowship at Lincoln college in 1668. In 1672, he became rector of this college and soon after was made chaplain in ordinary to the king. Between 1680 and 1682, he was rector of Bladon, near Woodstock, and was installed dean of Gloucester on April 30, 1681. He died suddenly in Lincoln College on Easter Eve, April 18, 1685.
Besides Observationes in Evangeliorum, Marshal was also the author of The Catechism set forth in the Book of Common Prayer (Oxford, 1679, 1680, 1700) and editor of Josephus Abudacnus's Historia Jacubitarum seu Coptorum, in Egypto (Oxford, 1675). He also wrote a prefatory epistle to Thomas Hyde's translation of the Gospels and Acts into Malay (Oxford, 1677), and assisted in the compilation of Richard Parr's Life of Archbishop Ussher (1686).

Sources:

Porter, Berta, "Marshall, Thomas (1621-1685)". Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, vol. 36.

Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts — Marshall Manuscripts

Access points: locations

Lisbon (Portugal)

Valladolid (Spain)

Access points: persons, families

Kimhi, Joseph

Nachman, Moses ben (Nachmanides)

Shem Tov, Joseph ben

Access points: subject terms

Sephardic manuscripts

Portuguese Medieval Jewry

Spanish Medieval Jewry

15th century

Access points: document types

Exegesis

Access, restrictions

Digital copies of some manuscripts are available at:

Digital Bodleian: Marshall

Finding aids

Beit-Ariè, Malachi. 1994. Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library: Supplement of Addenda and Corrigenda to Vol. I (A. Neubauer’s Catalogue). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Madan, Falconer. 1895. A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford Which Have Not Hitherto Been Catalogued in the Quarto Series, with References to the Oriental and Other Manuscripts. 7 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Neubauer, Adolf, and A. E. Cowley. 1886-1906. Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library and in the College Libraries of Oxford, Including Mss. in Other Languages ... Written with Hebrew Characters, or Relating to the Hebrew Language or Literature; and ... Samaritan Mss. 2 vols. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.

Links to finding aids