Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Start the Week

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

BBC Radio 4 FM

Andrew Marr

Christopher de Hamel

Lucie Skeaping

Edward Brooke-Hitching

Katy Hickman

Start the Week: Maps, Music and Medieval Manuscripts

Maps, Music and Medieval Manuscripts

26/12/2016

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Maps, Music and Medieval Manuscripts

Andrew Marr with Christopher de Hamel, Lucie Skeaping and Edward Brooke-Hitching.

Cultural discussion show. Andrew Marr looks at medieval manuscripts at the Parker Library, Cambridge, with Christopher de Hamel, Lucie Skeaping and Edward Brooke-Hitching.

Andrew Marr visits the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge to meet the oldest non-archaeological artefact in England, which is the oldest surviving illustrated Latin Gospel in the world - the sixth century Gospel of Saint Augustine. 

The Librarian Christopher de Hamel tells the stories of rare and beautiful manuscripts which have crisscrossed Europe for hundreds of years at the whim of power politics, religion and social change, but even now have secrets that are yet to be discovered. 

The musician and broadcaster Lucie Skeaping has also turned detective in her study of the Elizabethan jig - a popular and bawdy play set to music - where only fragments of parchment and clues to the tunes remain. 

Edward Brooke-Hitching uncovers the myths, lies and blunders which have plagued the cartographers of old, with his book of early maps. Mythical sea monsters, fabled mountain ranges, even phantom islands have all been written into the atlas of the world.

Producer Katy Hickman.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Start the Week

Maps, Music and Medieval Manuscripts

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4