Skip to Main Content

Slavonic Special Collections: Highlights of the Bodleian Slavonic Collections

Highlights of the Bodleian Russian and Slavonic Special Collections

Very old and valuable Glagolitic manuscripts (at least six codices) and fragments can be seen in Oxford in the Bodleian Library. There is the Oxford breviary from 1310, two Oxford Glagolitic missals from 14th century, the Oxford collection from 15th century (among its proprietors was Alberto Fortis). It also possesses some Croatian Cyrillic manuscripts.

One of the manuscripts in the collections of the Bodleian Library. Four gospels with prefaces. Moldavia.Written in Church Slavonic in 1429 at Neamt Monastery by Gavril Uric, the first known Rumanian painter, upon the request of Princess Marina and Prince Alexander the Good, the grandfather of Stephen the Great. Neamt, 1429. MS Canon Gr.122

Ostrog Bible (also more correctly known as Ostrih Bible (1581) after Ivan Fedorov, Ostrih (Bib.Slav.c.1)Given by Richard Lee in 1602.  Sir Richard Lee was Queen Elizabeth 1's ambassador to Russia in 1600-01.  On his return he presented four books to the Bodleian: this one, a book of canons, a Horologion and a Grammar

 

Acts and Epistles. Russian, 1557. (MS Bodley 942)

On many pages the margins have been insufficiently trimmed so that the text of the red headings, written in black, is still visible.

The binding is Russian, and is re-used, so is earlier than 1557. Inside the front cover a note (probably) in Thomas Hawtrey’s hand: ‘This boke cost one roble one Altyne and 2 d[engi] and was written in Colmogro and bounde at Vologda the 18th November ano 1557’. Also the note of the donor to Bodley: Lancelot Browne. Note marginal annotations in English and Slavonic, also in Hawtrey’s hand .