Dr Christopher de Hamel biography

Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

DPhil (Oxford), LittD (Hon, St John's University, Minnesota, USA), LittD (Hon, Otago University, New Zealand), FSA

Christopher de Hamel is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University. He has doctorates from both Oxford and Cambridge, as well as several honorary doctorates.

He is a Fellow of the prestigious Society of Antiquaries of London and a member of the Roxburghe Club. For 25 years from 1975 he was responsible for all catalogues and sales of medieval manuscripts at Sotheby's worldwide, and from 2000 to 2016 he was librarian of the Parker Library in Cambridge, one of the finest small collections of medieval books in the world.

In 2009, he delivered the Lyell Lectures at Oxford University. He has written many books, including A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, now the standard work on the subject. His most recent book is Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts (2016), which won the Wolfson History Prize for history written for the general public and the Duff Cooper Prize for best work of history, biography, or political science.