Saint Jerome

The Restitution of St Jerome: New College Library’s MS 384

Christopher — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 13:52:30 +0000

The Restitution of St Jerome: New College Library’s MS 384

Christopher Skelton-Foord

Issue number

(2025): 23

Notes category

Thanks to the great generosity of book history scholar Nicolas Barker, in January 2025, a sumptuous, 15th-century illuminated manuscript copy of the Letters of St Jerome finally came back home to New College Library. What are the most significant visual features of this gorgeous book that make it so special, and where had it been during its centuries away from college?

Opening large, illuminated initial with putto, butterfly, and vase
New College Library, Oxford, MS 384, f. 1r [detail]

New College Library and Archives, Oxford

23NCN4 (2025) Skelton-Foord on MS 384.pdf1.45 MB

John Russell (c. 1430–1494) and a Fragmentary Witness to Peter Schoeffer’s 1470 edition of Jerome’s Letters

Christopher — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 17:04:22 +0000

John Russell (c. 1430–1494) and a Fragmentary Witness to Peter Schoeffer’s 1470 edition of Jerome’s Letters

James Willoughby

Issue number

(2024): 21

Notes category

Library Printed Fragments

The fragments in New College Library which are the focus of this note are two large vellum leaves of Imperial size, three sides of which are printed, the fourth blank, and it was on this blank page that John Russell wrote his name in 1472. The discoloration at the edges shows that they were once pastedown; they may originally have been flyleaves; in either case, the verso was the natural place for an inscription.

New College Library, Oxford, LPF3/2, f. 47 [detail]

New College Library and Archives, Oxford

21NCN2 (2024) Willoughby on Russell.pdf1008.34 KB

Jerome’s Journey: William Warham and the Dedication Copy of Erasmus’s Edition of Jerome (1516)

Christopher — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 11:01:44 +0000

Jerome’s Journey: William Warham and the Dedication Copy of Erasmus’s Edition of Jerome (1516)

Tim Wade

Issue number

(2019): 12

Notes category

William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury

Erasmus

Saint Jerome

Library Antiquarian

New College Library holds a nine-volume copy of the works of St Jerome, printed in Basel in 1516 by Johann Froben. Edited (in part) by the Dutch scholar Erasmus (d. 1536), it was dedicated to the then Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham (d. 1532), who had been made a fellow of New College in 1475.

Erasmus arranged for Warham to receive his own personal copy of the work in the year of its printing, and it is these dedication volumes that now reside at New College.

New College Library, Oxford, BT1.74.9–13

New College Library and Archives, Oxford

12NCN4 (2019) Wade on Jerome_0.pdf280.26 KB