Christopher_de_Hamel_-_6_June_2017_Public_Lecture,_'The_Library_of_Saint_Thomas_Becket'

Christopher Francis Rivers de Hamel (born 20 November 1950) is a British academic librarian and expert on mediaeval manuscripts. He is a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and former Fellow Librarian of the Parker Library. His book '' Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts'' is the winner of the

Duff Cooper Prize The Duff Cooper Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of history, biography, political science or occasionally poetry, published in English or French. The prize was established in honour of Duff Cooper, a British diplomat, Ca ...

for 2016 and the

Wolfson History Prize The Wolfson History Prizes are literary awards given annually in the United Kingdom to promote and encourage standards of excellence in the writing of history for the general public. Prizes are given annually for two or three exceptional works ...

for 2017.

Early life and education

Christopher de Hamel was born on 20 November 1950 in London, England. At the age of four he moved with his parents to New Zealand, where he was educated at

King's High School, Dunedin King's High School is a state single-sex boys' secondary school in Dunedin, New Zealand. It is located at the southern end of the city close to the boundary between the suburbs of South Dunedin, St. Clair and Forbury, next to the parallel single ...

, and graduated with an honours degree in history from the

University of Otago , image_name = University of Otago Registry Building2.jpg , image_size = , caption = University clock tower , motto = la, Sapere aude , mottoeng = Dare to be wise , established = 1869; 152 years ago , type = Public research collegiate ...

. He was subsequently awarded a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(DPhil) degree by

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

for his research on 12th-century Bible commentaries. His thesis was titled "The production and circulation of glossed books of the Bible in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries". He has been awarded honorary Doctorates of Letters from the University of Otago and from St. John’s University, Minnesota.

Career

Between 1975 and 2000 de Hamel worked for

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in its Western Manuscripts Department. He was elected as the Donnelley Fellow Librarian of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 2000, and elected a member of the

Roxburghe Club The Roxburghe Club is a bibliophilic and publishing society based in the United Kingdom. Origins The spur to the Club's foundation was the sale of the enormous library of the Duke of Roxburghe (who had died in 1804), which took place over 46 day ...

the following year. De Hamel delivered the 2009

Lyell Lectures The Lyell Readership in Bibliography is an endowed annual lecture series given at Oxford University. Instituted in 1952 by a bequest from the solicitor, book collector and bibliographer James Patrick Ronaldson Lyell (1871–1948the series has conti ...

at Oxford University on the subject of "Fragments in Book Bindings". In 2017, his then-newly-published ''Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts'' was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year 2016, and won both the £40,000

and the

. De Hamel has formed a collection of manuscripts, the Christopher de Hamel Collection, located in Cambridge, England.

Published works

De Hamel has written a number of historical works within his field of expertise: *''Geoffrey Chaucer - Prologue to the Canterbury Tales - A Hitherto Unrecorded Variant Reading", Privately Printed, 1980 *''A History of Illuminated Manuscripts'' (Phaidon, 1986; second revised edition, 1994) * ''Syon Abbey, The library of the Bridgettine Nuns and their Peregrinations after the Reformation'' (

, 1991) * ''Scribes and Illuminators'' (

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, 1992) * ''The Book: a History of the Bible'' (Phaidon, 2001) * ''The Rothschilds and their Collections of Illuminated Manuscripts'' (

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

, 2005) *''The Macclesfield Alphabet Book: a facsimile'' (2010) with Patricia Lovett * ''Gilding the Lilly: a Hundred Medieval and Illuminated Manuscripts in the Lilly Library'' (

Lilly Library The Lilly Library, located on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, is an important rare book and manuscript library in the United States. At its dedication on October 3, 1960, the library contained a collection of 20,000 boo ...

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

, 2010) * '' Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts'' (Allen Lane, 2016) * ''Making Medieval Manuscripts'' (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford 2018) * ''The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club'' (Allen Lane, 2022)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:de Hamel, Christopher Living people Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University of Otago alumni People educated at King's High School, Dunedin Academic librarians English palaeographers New Zealand palaeographers 1950 births Fellows of the Royal Historical Society People associated with the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles