The Man Who Wrote His Own Death | Season 3: The Divine Professor

Thomas Neale knew he would die.

Of course, he wasn't the only person in sixteenth century England who knew that. Death was a part of everyday life, and Thomas would have understood that better than most.

But Thomas did something unusual.

He wrote about his own death before it happened.

At St. Peter's Church in Cassington, Oxfordshire, there is a brass memorial connected to Thomas Neale. On it are words that he composed while he was still alive. The inscription reflects on the languages he had spent his life studying and teaching, and then asks what use those languages could be to him once he was gone.

There is something about that that stayed with me.

Because Thomas Neale spent his life surrounded by words.

He studied them. He translated them. He taught them. He wrote them.

And eventually, he used them to decide how he would be remembered.

Who was Thomas Neale?

Thomas Neale was born around 1519 in Yate, England, although even that date comes with some uncertainty.

He grew up in a family with connections to education and the church. His mother, Elizabeth Belsire, was connected to Alexander Belsire, a fellow of New College, Oxford. Thomas went to Winchester College and eventually became a scholar at New College, where he earned multiple degrees.

His life unfolded during one of the most extraordinary periods in English history.

When Thomas was young, Henry VIII was king. England was still dealing with the consequences of Henry's break with Rome.

Then came Edward VI and further Protestant reforms.

Then Mary I and an attempt to restore Catholicism.

Then Elizabeth I and another change in religious direction.

Thomas lived through all of it.

And he wasn't simply watching these changes happen around him.

His education and career were tied directly to the institutions being affected by them.

Thomas became known as a scholar of Greek and Hebrew. He eventually became Oxford's Regius Professor of Hebrew, a position that placed him at the center of the study of biblical languages.

That part of his story is fascinating on its own.

But when I started looking more closely at Thomas's writings, I began to wonder what his study of Hebrew meant to him.

A scholar surrounded by questions.

Today, learning another language might mean downloading an app, taking a class, or preparing for a trip.

For Thomas, studying Hebrew meant something very different.

Hebrew was the language of much of the Old Testament. To study it was to work with biblical scripture in one of the languages in which it had originally been written.

Thomas didn't simply study Hebrew, he translated.

One of the most interesting pieces of evidence comes from the 1550s, when a work connected with Thomas was published in Paris. It involved the writings of David Kimhi, a Jewish scholar whose biblical commentaries had become important to Christian scholars studying Hebrew.

Thomas's connection to this work gives us a glimpse into the scholarly world he was moving through.

It also creates one of the questions that follows his story.

Why was Thomas in Paris?

The records give us clues, but they don't give us a complete answer.

One of the things I have tried to do throughout my research into Thomas Neale is resist the temptation to fill in the empty spaces simply because I want to know what happened.

There are gaps in his story.

Some of them may eventually be explained. Some may never be.

And sometimes the most interesting part of genealogy and historical research is learning how to sit with what we don't know.

The man behind the records.

This is what drew me into Thomas Neale's story in the first place.

When we look at someone who lived hundreds of years ago, it is easy to see a collection of dates.

Born.

Educated.

Ordained.

Professor.

Translator.

Died.

But there was a person moving through all of those events.

He lived through changing governments and changing religious expectations. He studied languages. He traveled. He wrote. He taught. He built a career.

And somewhere along the way, he began thinking about what would remain when all of that was over.

That brings us back to Cassington.

Thomas's memorial doesn't simply tell us when he died.

It tells us something about what he thought his life had been about.

And I think that is where this story becomes more than a timeline.

Because when Thomas wrote about his own death, he wasn't just recording the end of his life.

He was looking back at the things that had defined him.

His words.

His languages.

His scholarship.

His faith.

His legacy.

And perhaps the limits of all of them.

Nothing is entirely new….

There is another piece of Thomas's writing that has stayed with me throughout this research.

He wrote about the way human history seems to repeat itself.

People change.

Names change.

Circumstances change.

But sometimes the same patterns appear again.

Thomas wrote those words more than four hundred years ago.

And as I began researching his life, I kept coming back to them.

Because Thomas lived through enormous changes, but he also lived through something very familiar.

Uncertainty.

The feeling of trying to understand a world that keeps changing around you.

The need to make decisions without knowing what comes next.

The desire to leave something behind.

Those are not sixteenth century problems.

They are human ones.

And that is why I wanted to begin this season with Thomas at the end of his life.

Before we go back through his education, his work, his travels, his scholarship and the religious world that shaped his career, I wanted to start with the man looking back.

The man who had spent his life studying words.

The man who eventually wrote his own death.

Listen to The Man Who Wrote His Own Death

In this season, I am following the life of Thomas Neale through the records that survive, the writings he left behind, and the questions that still don't have clear answers.

The Man Who Wrote His Own Death is the first episode of Season Three of Legacy Lore: The Divine Professor

Sources:

• Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, entry on Thomas Neale

• Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, entry on John Holyman

• Winchester College records relating to Thomas Neale

• New College, Oxford records relating to Thomas Neale's education and career

• Thomas Neale's surviving writings and translations

• David Kimhi's biblical commentaries and Thomas Neale's Latin translation

• Thomas Neale's memorial at St Peter's Church, Cassington

• Oxford research on Thomas Neale and his Hebrew scholarship

• Research on Thomas Neale's 1556 work published in Paris