Nicolas Barker, Christopher de Hamel, and Joanna Barker (l to r)

The inaugural contribution to our new series, “Voices of the Monastery,” was from Abbot Emeritus Matthew Stark. His cogent thoughts had originally been shared with families on Parents’ Weekend 1971 and were soon thereafter published in the Portsmouth newsletter in March of that same academic year. We republished them again in these pages more recently, 52 years later. While the “voice” you heard a few weeks ago was that of Abbot Matthew, I have chosen to take a different tack. In a sense, mine is not the voice you will be hearing here. Rather, you will be introduced to the voices of others which are quite strong in my memory, recent and distant, yet interconnected across years and miles, each of which plays a key role in the story which I am about to unravel. Allow me to introduce them one at a time and to tell the story that links them all together.

Winning bookmark for School library’s contest;

designed by

J.J. Servidea ‘27

Voice #1: Fr. Riley Williams. Fr. Riley is a young pastor and principal at Holy Name Parish and School in Fall River, Massachusetts, who was introduced to me several years ago by Dan McDonough, former Head of School here. After making a first visit to Portsmouth for a day of quiet time in our monastic library (remember this location), vespers in church, and dinner in the refectory, his visits have continued on a regular basis. He invited me to speak on Benedictine monasticism to an 8th grade religion class in December of 2023. After the requisite tour of the school and church, we retired to the rectory where Father brewed a pot of strong espresso with a lemon twist (a skill he may have picked up when he lived and studied in Rome at the Pontifical North American College). On my way out the front door, he casually handed me a thick book he had just finished and said I would love it. For the record, and to preview a later “voice”, the book is Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World by Christopher de Hamel.

Voices #2 & 3: Nicolas & Joanna Barker. Fr. Riley was right about my loving it and I couldn’t put it down, having ignored the stack of other books waiting in my pipeline. In this study of hand-illuminated manuscripts, de Hamel has divided his 600-plus page tome into twelve chapters, each dedicated to a well-known historical non-printed book. As I was breezing through Chapter 2 and learning about “a famous early manuscript Bible” known as The Codex Amiatinus, circa 700, now in Florence in the Biblioteca Laurenziana, I was lazily caught up in de Hamel’s journey from Wearmouth-Jarrow in England to Umbria in Italy. Suddenly, as if hitting a speed bump meant to slow one’s journey, I sat bolt upright when I read this line: “I had arranged to meet Nicolas Barker, editor of The Book Collector, and his wife, Joanna, who have a holiday house near the Lago di Bolsena and who met me with their car at Orvieto station. Our day’s objective was to see where the Codex Amiatinus had been kept.” As Guest Master when I was in St. Louis, I booked rooms for visitors, and it happens that I had been retrieving the Barkers at the airport over the years, generally after their arrival from London via NYC to visit St. Louis Abbey, chauffeuring them around town when necessary. During their last visit to St. Louis, a blizzard blanketed the East Coast, and Nicolas was due to speak at a bookseller’s convention in Manhattan. All of the airports were shut down, a Guest Master’s nightmare.

Second place bookmark for School Library’s contest; designed by Avery Bell ‘26

​Voice #4: Fr. Timothy John Horner, O.S.B. The Barkers would come to St. Louis to visit Nicolas’ cousin, Fr. Timothy John Horner, O.S.B. – descended from the family which also produced Little Jack Horner of nursery-rhyme books fame. My involvement with Fr. Timothy came about as a result of my assignment as Infirmarian, where I assisted him in the monastery with personal care and medications, scheduled his outside caregivers, and arranged medical appointments, getting him there and back safely and on time. Two years after the Barkers’ final visit, Fr. Timothy died peacefully in his monk’s cell, on April 27, 2018, at age 97. May he rest in peace. Not to be outdone by her husband having a Benedictine priest as a close relative, Joanna’s brother was also a priest and monk, Fr. Jonathan Cotton of Ampleforth Abbey in the U.K., also Fr. Timothy’s community before his transfer of vows to St. Louis. Sadly, at about the exact same time as I was reading about the Barkers in de Hamel’s book, Fr. Jonathan died at Ampleforth on January 17, 2024, at age 80. May he also rest in peace.

Voice #5: Christopher de Hamel. At the time that news of Fr. Jonathan’s death reached me at Portsmouth, I was not aware that Joanna’s maiden name was Cotton, nor that they were siblings. Once that connection was established, a steady exchange of communication began. After returning de Hamel’s book to Fr. Riley, I ordered my own copy from ABE Books (an excellent internet resource). At that time, I was planning a trip to the U.K. with Abbot Michael for meetings of the English Benedictine Congregation (EBC) in mid-July. Once Joanna, the consummate hostess, heard of this, she planned an intimate dinner at the 1840, 5-story townhouse which she and Nicolas share in Notting Hill, just west of Hyde Park. I was elated when she told me that their friend, the author Christopher de Hamel, would be the other dinner guest. In a perfect “taking-coals-to-Newcastle” scenario, I carted my copy of his manuscripts book to the U.K. for him to inscribe. After a week of EBC meetings at Buckfast Abbey, I spent a few days at Oxford catching up with my godson, Dr. Stephen Bullivant, also a prodigious author. Then it was off to London for a splendid reunion with the Barkers and to meet Christopher. Later that summer evening in the garden-level dining room, as she served the main course, Joanna half-heartedly chafed at Christopher and the line in the book about their road trip to Tuscany when he writes, “Nicolas drove; Joanna directed him from the back seat.” (She doesn’t consider herself a back-seat driver.) Then Nicolas said something to the effect of, “Well, Sixtus, if you enjoyed Christopher’s book that much, you will absolutely delight in his latest, also about illuminated manuscripts!” (The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club, a copy of which just happened to be close at hand.)

My guestroom, with bookshelves

I ordered it a few days later after I returned to my hotel at Oxford. It, too, came via ABE Books and by the time I arrived stateside a week later, it was in my mail slot, having been shipped from an American bookseller in Kansas City. I am halfway through its 600+ pages. We had spoken over dinner of Fr. Riley, Fr. Timothy, and Fr. Jonathan; of authors and their books; of my godson and his books. We compared notes on the recently restored mosaics from the Orvieto Cathedral newly mounted in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and of the miraculous “bleeding corporal” still in Orvieto. And we remembered our mutual friends back in St. Louis, Lucie and Anthony Garnett, he being a 93-year-old antiquarian book dealer (“Fine Books”) and an “old boy” of Ampleforth College. So many voices, now interwoven through our seemingly disconnected encounters, and thanks to our reading of books. These voices and many others seemed to accompany me up several staircases to the bed, where I had only sweet dreams that night. I said earlier to “remember this location” of our monastic library. This story pauses for now in my guest room, overlooking Clarendon Road in a room filled with books, in a house of a million books.

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