Christopher Hamel

Medieval manuscript historian and author of the widely acclaimed Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts discovers the most intimate surviving relic of Thomas Beckett. The assassination of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral on December 29, 1170, is one of the most famous events in European history. It inspired the largest pilgrim site in medieval Europe and many works of literature from Chaucer''s Canterbury Tales to T. S. Eliot''s Murder in the Cathedral and Anouilh''s Becket. In a brilliant piece of historical detective work, Christopher de Hamel here identifies the Anglo-Saxon Psalter which Becket cherished throughout his time as Archbishop of Canterbury and which he may even have been holding when he was murdered. Beautifully illustrated, this is an exciting rediscovery of one of the most evocative artifacts of medieval England and the only surviving relic from Becket''s shrine.

A brilliant memoir from the bestselling author of Meetings With Remarkable ManuscriptsChristopher de Hamel is one of the world’s best-known scholars and writers on illuminated manuscripts. He was mostly brought up in the south of New Zealand, where his family moved when he was four. This book magically evokes a childhood at vast distance from Europe, recalling his thrill and wonder in first encountering medieval manuscripts in libraries there and the realization that they too are migrants far from home. The Migrants explores the immense journeys of books and people. It is a tale of colonization and the migration of culture – of motives and idealism, triumphs and disasters – bringing us face-to-face with history. We meet the colonial governor on his paradise island, the shipwrecked accountant, the nonagenarian who cut up manuscripts, the magnate who unknowingly bought Becket’s Boethius and the early settler who inscribed his Book of Hours in the Maori language in 1842. We travel with the author today back to where these manuscripts began their own lives, through France and Poland and medieval England, discovering their first owners and following the longest journeys on earth. This is a coming-of-age saga with extraordinary twists, crossing many hundreds of years and tens of thousands of miles, recounted with passion, humour and a lifetime’s reflection.

The illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages are among the greatest works of European art and literature. We are dazzled by them and recognize their crucial role in the transmission of knowledge. But we generally think much less about the countless men and women who made, collected and preserved them through the centuries, and to whom they owe their existence. This entrancing book describes some of the extraordinary people who have spent their lives among illuminated manuscripts over the last thousand years. A monk in Normandy, a prince of France, a Florentine bookseller, an English antiquary, a rabbi from central Europe, a French priest, a Keeper at the British Museum, a Greek forger, a German polymath, a British connoisseur and the woman who created the most spectacular library in America - all of them were participants in what Christopher de Hamel calls the Manuscripts Club. This exhilarating fraternity, and the fellow enthusiasts who come with it, throw new light on how manuscripts have survived and been used by very different kinds of people in many different circumstances. Christopher de Hamel's unexpected connections and discoveries reveal a passion which crosses the boundaries of time. We understand the manuscripts themselves better by knowing who their keepers and companions have been. In 1850 (or thereabouts) John Ruskin bought his first manuscript 'at a bookseller's in a back alley'. This was his reaction: 'The new worlds which every leaf of this book opened to me, and the joy I had in counting their letters and unravelling their arabesques as if they had all been of beaten gold - as many of them were - cannot be told.' The members of de Hamel's club share many such wonders, which he brings to us with scholarship, style, and a lifetime's experience.

WINNER OF THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE AND THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 'Endlessly fascinating and enjoyable' Neil MacGregor 'A marvellous book' David Attenborough 'Full of delights' Tom Stoppard An extraordinary exploration of the medieval world - the most beguiling history book of the year This is a book about why medieval manuscripts matter. Coming face to face with an important illuminated manuscript in the original is like meeting a very famous person. We may all pretend that a well-known celebrity is no different from anyone else, and yet there is an undeniable thrill in actually meeting and talking to a person of world stature. The idea for the book, which is entirely new, is to invite the reader into intimate conversations with twelve of the most famous manuscripts in existence and to explore with the author what they tell us about nearly a thousand years of medieval history - and sometimes about the modern world too. Christopher de Hamel introduces us to kings, queens, saints, scribes, artists, librarians, thieves, dealers, collectors and the international community of manuscript scholars, showing us how he and his fellows piece together evidence to reach unexpected conclusions. He traces the elaborate journeys which these exceptionally precious artefacts have made through time and space, shows us how they have been copied, who has owned them or lusted after them (and how we can tell), how they have been embroiled in politics and scholarly disputes, how they have been regarded as objects of supreme beauty and luxury and as symbols of national identity. The book touches on religion, art, literature, music, science and the history of taste. Part travel book, part detective story, part conversation with the reader, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts conveys the fascination and excitement of encountering some of the greatest works of art in our culture which, in the originals, are to most people completely inaccessible. At the end, we have a slightly different perspective on history and how we come by knowledge. It is a most unusual book.