Jesus College was founded in 1571 by Queen Elizabeth I, at the request of a Welsh lawyer and clergyman, Hugh Price. The compact central College site has beautiful quadrangles tucked away off Turl Street, right in the heart of Oxford.

Among the College library’s historic collections are 11,000 antiquarian printed volumes, and over 150 medieval manuscripts dating back to the 11th century. The College Archive contains papers of old members, as well as the College’s own administrative records.

The manuscripts available in Digital Bodleian reflect Jesus College's historic links with Wales and the Welsh language. Some were among the first manuscripts to be digitized at the University, as part of the Early Manuscripts at Oxford project. The digitized items include the Red Book of Hergest (MS 111), a vast anthology of Middle Welsh literature, which contains the magical tales of the Mabinogion, the legendary history of the Kings of Britain, the works of the Poets of the Princes, and the herbal remedies of the Physicians of Myddfai.

For more information about the Jesus College library and archive, please see the Jesus College website. For catalogue descriptions of the library's medieval manuscripts, including the items digitzed here, please see the online catalogue, Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries.

You may reproduce these images under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) licence, unless otherwise stated. Please include the permalink and an appropriate citation. You do not need to request permission, but in case of enquiries, please contact librarian@jesus.ox.ac.uk.