The Book in the Cathedral - by Christopher de Hamel (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts is miles away from academic dry-as-dust scholarship. You'll love learning from it. Little wonder that in Britain this extraordinary book has already won both the Wolfson History Prize and the Duff Cooper nonfiction prize." -Washington Post

"[De Hamel] is voraciously completist, recording impressions of each journey, place, building and reading room, as well as every coverage detail of each manuscript's creation, content and existence as a physical object through time and space... On this archival odyssey, I lost count of the things I learned...[Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts], like the volumes that are its subject, is a book of wonders." - The New York Times Book Review on Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts

"Christopher de Hamel quotes Sherlock Holmes, as he might, in his latest bit of medieval detective work, showing that a book of the Psalms in a Cambridge college was once a treasured possession of St Thomas Becket ... grippingly told in The Book in the Cathedral. -- Christopher Howse ― Daily Telegraph

"De Hamel - author of the wonderful Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts - shows us all the tools of the bibliographer's trade: dating handwriting, identifying pigments, noting the rust marks left by nails from a now-lost ornate binding ... The identification - or rehabilitation - of his psalter, the book he carried with him into exile, possibly held at his death, is a timely and enjoyable tribute. -- Dennis Duncan ― The Guardian

"De Hamel is a man of extraordinary erudition and easy charm; his book asks many questions of the past, and invokes many mysteries." -The New Yorker on Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts

"Readers will delight in de Hamel's passion for his subject, his book's sumptuous illustrations, and above all his virtuoso display of learning -- John Guy ― Literary Review

About the Author

In the course of a long career at Sotheby's Christopher de Hamel probably handled and cataloged more illuminated manuscripts and over a wider range than anyone else alive. He is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was Librarian of the Parker Library from 2000 to 2016, which holds many of the earliest manuscripts in English language and history, including the Psalter of Becket. Christopher de Hamel is the author of A History of Illuminated Manuscripts and Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, which won the Wolfson History Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize in 2016. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society.