At the beginning of this season of Legacy Lore, I introduced you to a man who did something rather unusual.
He wrote his own death.
Thomas Neale composed an inscription imagining himself already gone, wrapped in a winding sheet, with his tongue silent and his knowledge of languages no longer of use to him.
His memorial hangs at St. Peter's Church, where I stood looking at the words and wondering what it must have been like to imagine your own death while still alive.
What would you want people to remember?
What would you hope remained after you were gone?
And perhaps most importantly, what would you want to say while you still had the opportunity?
As I reached the final episode of The Divine Professor, I found myself returning to these questions. Throughout the season, we explored Thomas's education, his time at Oxford, his Hebrew scholarship, and the religious and political changes that shaped the world in which he lived.
But his surviving writings offered another opportunity.
Rather than looking only at his academic achievements and the historical records, I wanted to explore what these writings might reveal about the man behind them.
And one manuscript, in particular, gave us plenty to consider.
A manuscript with a hidden identity
One of the most fascinating discoveries connected to Thomas Neale is New College MS 303, a manuscript held at New College, Oxford.
Dating to 1584, it contains religious writings, reflections, and poetry. But there is something unusual about its authorship…..the author concealed his identity.
Rather than simply leaving the manuscript anonymous, he included a series of verses and a diagram that appear to provide clues to the person responsible for the writing.
In a 2021 article, The Authorship of New College MS 303, Professor Alison Shell examines the manuscript and makes the case that the concealed name belongs to Thomas Neal, also known as Thomas Neale.
Her research goes further, suggesting that the evidence strongly supports his responsibility for the manuscript as a whole.
This is an important discovery because the manuscript gives us more than another reference to Thomas's academic life. It offers a glimpse into religious ideas, personal reflections, and questions that may have occupied his mind. The title of the first work within the manuscript is particularly interesting. It describes a protestation concerning points of the Catholic faith, written by an elderly Englishman abroad during his travels as a way of opening and discharging his conscience before God and the world, in place of his last will and testament.
If the manuscript dates to 1584, Thomas would have been approximately 65 years old. The language of a last will and testament is especially striking when we remember the memorial he had composed for himself. Both seem to invite us to consider a man reflecting on his life, his beliefs, and what he would leave behind.
One of the poems within the manuscript takes us back to the author's younger years.
It begins:
"When I was young, and beard first grew,
That time should I have borne record,
And witnessed the faith I knew,
How well it doth with truth accord."
The author looks back on his youth and reflects that this was when he should have spoken publicly about the faith he knew.
But he did not.
As the poem continues, he describes the passing of youth, the arrival of grey hair, and the years that have slipped away.
Yet the poem does not end entirely in regret.
The author writes:
"But though of youth I be bereft,
My faith yet dying will I tell."
He follows this with another thought:
"For late to speak much better 'tis,
Than not to speak herein at all."
The message is powerful. The author appears to regret that he waited so long to speak about his beliefs, but he has decided that speaking late is still better than remaining silent.
Professor Shell interprets this poem as evidence that the author was troubled by his delayed public declaration of Catholic faith.
We cannot know precisely what Thomas was thinking when these words were written, but the poem offers something unusual in historical research: a possible glimpse into how an individual understood his own decisions.
A country where faith and authority changed
To understand the significance of these writings, we must consider the world Thomas Neale experienced.
He lived through the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. During his lifetime, England experienced significant changes in religious authority, public worship, and the official religious direction of the country. The beliefs accepted under one monarch could become unwelcome or even dangerous under another.
Thomas was a scholar whose education and career were closely connected to scripture and religious scholarship. These changes formed part of the world in which he lived and worked.
Another passage attributed to his writing reflects on the repetition of human events:
"If anyone carefully considers the events of human affairs and the long succession of human actions, comparing them with one another, he will perhaps observe the ancient saying is very true: nothing is entirely new."
The passage goes on to consider how events, thoughts, and opinions can return in similar forms across generations.
I find this particularly interesting when considering Thomas's lifetime.
Was he looking at the religious conflicts of his own day and recognizing patterns that had appeared before?
Perhaps he understood that struggles over belief, authority, and the freedom to speak were not new.
Another poem in New College MS 303 explores the idea of people being prevented from speaking freely.
It reads:
"Where bad alone may speak at will,
And good, the while, their tongues must hold,
As though they had no tongues, nor skill,
Seek for no more, the cause is told."
The contrast is between those who can speak freely and those who must hold their tongues.
Professor Shell places these verses within the religious circumstances of Elizabethan England, particularly the experiences and concerns of Catholics who believed their ability to express their faith openly was being restricted. Whether the author was writing from personal experience, expressing sympathy with others, or making a broader religious argument is something we cannot establish with certainty.
But the theme of silence becomes difficult to ignore.
And then we encounter another poem that takes this idea a step further.
The mystery of the tongueless name
One of the most intriguing passages in the manuscript reads:
"But if the good had tongues again,
Restored, as Zacharie had his,
This tongueless name would speak out plain,
And flatly tell what were amiss."
The reference is to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist.
In the Gospel of Luke, Zechariah is rendered unable to speak after questioning the angel Gabriel's announcement that he and Elizabeth would have a son. His speech is eventually restored after he confirms that the child's name will be John. He then begins praising God. The biblical reference is important because the author connects the restoration of Zechariah's speech with the idea of a name being able to speak plainly.
But what exactly is this tongueless name?
It brings us back to the concealed identity within the manuscript.
Professor Shell examines a diagram that uses a numerical system connected to the Hebrew alphabet. This method is known as gematria, in which Hebrew letters are assigned numerical values.
The numbers are used to encode the consonants of the author's name. However, the vowels are missing.
The author invites the reader to supply the missing vowel points, or "vocal points," to make the name speak. When Professor Shell works through these clues, she identifies the concealed name as Thomas Neal.
Think about what that means.
The author writes about people who cannot speak freely, refers to a biblical figure whose speech was restored, and then conceals his own name in a way that requires the reader to give it a voice. It is a remarkable way to sign a manuscript.
The author conceals his identity, but leaves behind instructions for someone to discover it. Was Thomas trying to protect himself? Was he making a statement about the religious world around him? Or was he doing both?
More than a professor
When we step back from the cipher, we see that Thomas Neale was more than the questions surrounding his religious beliefs.
He was a scholar.
He spent years at Oxford, studying and teaching, and eventually became Regius Professor of Hebrew.
Hebrew was an important language for biblical scholarship, allowing scholars to study the Old Testament in its original language and examine scripture more closely. His appointment placed him within the academic history of one of England's leading universities during a period of significant religious and intellectual change.
But his legacy is not limited to his university appointment.
His surviving writings give us another view of his intellectual life. An older man looking back at his youth, wondering why he did not speak when he had the opportunity. A man interested in the way history seemed to repeat itself. A man who concealed his name through numerical values of Hebrew letters, leaving behind clues for someone to uncover.
We may never know exactly what Thomas believed at every stage of his life, or why he chose to conceal his identity.
But these writings allow us to consider questions that a list of dates and appointments could never answer.
The words he left behind
At the beginning of this season, I told you that Thomas Neale wrote his own death.
He imagined his own death.
He imagined his tongue becoming silent.
And he asked what use Greek, Hebrew, and Latin could possibly be once he was gone.
After spending months researching his life and reading the words associated with him, I find myself wondering whether he was thinking about more than death.
Was he trying to make sense of his own life?
Was he reflecting on his faith?
Was he looking back at history to help understand his present?
I cannot answer those questions for him.
But I think what I have discovered is that he also left behind a record of life that was still trying to speak.
And whether he intended someone to discover those words or not, here we are, centuries later, reading them and trying to understand a little more about the man who wrote them.
Still reading.
Still questioning.
Still listening to the story of Thomas Neale: The Divine Professor.
Perhaps that is the greatest legacy of all.
Listen to the season finale
In Episode 6 of Legacy Lore: The Divine Professor, join me as we explore Thomas Neale's surviving writings, his hidden cipher, his reflections on faith and silence, and the memorial that started this journey.
Episode 6: The Words He Left Behind
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Further reading
For those interested in exploring the historical research behind this episode:
Alison Shell, The Authorship of New College MS 303 (2021).
Alison Shell, The Professor, The Queen and the Nag's Head: Thomas Neal Reimagines the Elizabethan Settlement.
The Gospel of Luke, 1:5–64, for the account of Zechariah and the restoration of his speech.
This episode is independently researched, written, and produced by Sammy Jo Saraceni as part of Saraceni & Co Productions.
