The Book in the Cathedral

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'.0In a brilliant piece of historical detective work, Christopher de Hamel here identifies the only surviving relic from Becket's shrine: the Anglo-Saxon Psalter which he cherished throughout his time as Archbishop of Canterbury, and which he may even have been holding when he was murdered.0Beautifully 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. --

In the course of a long career at Sotheby's and at Cambridge University, Christopher de Hamel has probably seen and catalogued 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, which won both the Duff Cooper Prize and the Wolfson History Prize, The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club and The Book in the Cathedral. He is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.