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The Book in the Cathedral
  • Published: 20 October 2020
  • ISBN: 9780241469583
  • Imprint: Allen Lane
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 64
  • RRP: $29.99

The Book in the Cathedral

The Last Relic of Thomas Becket

Formats & editions
EBook
6 Aug 2020
Hardback
20 Oct 2020
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The best-selling historian of medieval manuscripts discovers the most intimate surviving relic of Thomas Becket

The assassination of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 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 and published to coincide with the 850th anniversary of the death of Thomas Becket, this is an exciting rediscovery of one of the most evocative artefacts of medieval England, and the only surviving relic from Becket's shrine.
  • Published: 20 October 2020
  • ISBN: 9780241469583
  • Imprint: Allen Lane
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 64
  • RRP: $29.99
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About the author

Christopher de Hamel

In the course of a long career at Sotheby’s and at Cambridge University, Christopher de Hamel has probably handled more medieval manuscripts than anyone alive and his delight and enthusiasm in them run through all he writes. His many books, translated into numerous languages, include A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts (winner of the Duff Cooper Prize and the Wolfson History Prize), The Book in the Cathedral: The Last Relic of Thomas Becket and The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club. He is a Life Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He lives in London.

CdH

Also by Christopher de Hamel

The Migrants
The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club
Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts
See all