Research

The Wolsey Lectionaries: palette and pigments

Professor Andy Beeby and Professor Richard Gameson

On the 23rd July 2025, Professor Andy Beeby (Durham University) and Professor Richard Gameson (Durham University) gave a talk in the Upper Library at Christ Church College about the scientific identification of the pigments used in the Wolsey manuscripts. Both manuscripts were on display together for the special occasion.

Thomas Wolsey and the Books of Cardinal College, Oxford

Dr James Willoughby, Research Fellow, New College, Oxford

The last great collegiate foundations of the Middle Ages were two sisterhouses established at Ipswich and Oxford by Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey (1470/1–1530), both of them ostentatiously named ‘Cardinal College’ and both raised to a level of grandeur as to make it plain that the magnificent Wolsey was intending to dwarf in scale all existing models. […]

The Wolsey Gospel-Lectionary and Its Provenance

Dr Christine Ferdinand, former Librarian, Emeritus Fellow, Magdalen College, Oxford

There is no doubt that both Magdalen College’s gospel-lectionary (Magdalen MS. Lat. 223) and Christ Church’s epistle-lectionary (Christ Church MS. 101) were commissioned by Thomas Wolsey, for his initials and coats of arms make frequent appearances in the borders.

Cardinal Wolsey’s Patronage of the Arts

Professor Steven Gunn, Tutor in History, Professor of Early Modern History, Merton College, Oxford

Thomas Wolsey was the greatest English art patron of his age. As England’s leading churchman and the king’s first minister – cardinal-legate and chancellor – he had both the motive and the opportunity. For contemporaries, magnificent buildings and fine objects proclaimed social rank, political power and greatness of mind; but inappropriate magnificence reeked of vainglory.

Thomas Wolsey’s Epistle and Gospel Lectionaries: Unanswered Questions and New Hypotheses

Professor James P. Carley, Fellow at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto; Professor of the History of the Book at the University of Kent; Honorary Research Fellow, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

The history of Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey’s epistle lectionary (Oxford, Christ Church, MS. 101) and gospel lectionary (Oxford, Magdalen College, MS. lat. 223), perhaps the two finest surviving examples of his cult of magnificence in its final phase, continues to be elusive in spite of all the scholarship devoted to them.

The Lectionary and the Liturgy

Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church St Cross College, Oxford

Wolsey’s lectionary is a witness to a liturgy soon to be transformed by the Reformation. This series of European-wide upheavals was already breaking out as the lectionary-book was being made.

The Illuminator: The Master of Cardinal Wolsey

Dr Elizabeth Morrison, Senior Curator of Manuscripts, J. Paul Getty Museum

The Master of Cardinal Wolsey, a designation introduced in 2003 during research for the Getty Museum’s ‘Illuminating the Renaissance’ exhibition, is named after the patron of two impressive liturgical books now in Oxford: a gospel-lectionary (Magdalen College, MS. Lat. 223) and an epistle-lectionary (Christ Church, MS. 101).

Examination of Wolsey Gospel Lectionary prior to digitisation

Jane Eagan, Head of Conservation, Oxford Conservation Consortium

Prior to agreeing to it being digitised, the Gospel Lectionary was examined in the Old Library at Magdalen by Oxford Conservation Consortium’s Head of Preservation and Conservation, Jane Eagan, on 19 Dec 2016, using a digital microscope at about 30x magnification.