Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World

In this, he succeeds brilliantly, producing a truly wonderful book in the process - wise, entertaining and informative. They are also much funnier." -  Diarmaid MacCulloch . Instead of guiding our own exploration of these beautiful objects, his book has to serve as a substitute for the real thing. De Hamel's book, scholarly but unfailingly readable, is the beginning of wisdom in all things scribal and scriptural." – Ian Thomson, Observer   "Christopher de Hamel is one of the world's leading palaeographers In this splendid new book

De Hamel lives in London and Cambridge. . Christopher de Hamel is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; he was until recently librarian of Parker Library in Cambridge, a collection which includes many, even most, of the earliest manuscripts in English language and history. Christopher de Hamel is perhaps the best-known writer on medieval manuscripts in the world.  In the course of a long career at Sotheby's he catalogued more illuminated manuscripts than any other person

Noted authority Christopher de Hamel invites the reader into intimate conversations with these texts to explore what they tell us about nearly a thousand years of medieval history - and sometimes about the modern world too. Part travel book, part detective story, part conversation with the reader, MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MANUSCRIPTS allows us to experience some of the greatest works of art in our culture to give us a different perspective on history and on how we come by knowledge..   Two of the manuscripts visited are now in libraries of North America, the Morgan Library in New York and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. In so doing, de Hamel introduces us to kings, queens, saints, scribes, artists, librarians, thieves, dealers, and collectors. From the earliest book in medieval England to the incomparable Book of Kells to the oldest manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, these encounters tell a narrative of intellectual culture and art over the course of a millennium. Winner of THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE and THE DUFF COOPER PRIZEAn extraordinary and beautifully illustrated exploration of the medieval world through twelve manuscripts, from one of the world's leading experts   MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MANUSCRIPTS is a remarkable examination of twelve illuminated manuscripts from the medieval period. He traces the elaborate journeys which these exceptionally precious artifacts have made through t