G. V. Scammell – författare

Descended from the ancient French family of Blois, Hugh du Puiset lived in the twelfth century. Charming, distinguished, arrogant, unscrupulous but above all ambitious, du Puiset died a disappointed man. It was to his ambition that he owed both his success and his downfall, the vices of his youth and the follies of his old age. G. V. Scammell here tells the story of his life - of the intrigues which preceded his election to the Bishopric of Durham, the swings of fortune which brought him into royal favour and disfavour, his role in the ecclesiastical politics of medieval England, the splendour of his Diocese, and the extent of his authority. Relevant documents and genealogical details are included in an appendix. This 1956 book, which is developed from the Prince Consort Prize Essay of 1952, should interest historians of the Middle Ages and the Church.

In this authoritative study, first published in 1981, Geoffrey Scammell traces the course of European expansion between around 800 and 1650, during which time the world known to western Europeans was enlarged in a way unparalleled before or since. The book takes a broad historical perspective, linking the classic age of European expansion to its medieval antecedents. The Norse reached North America in the tenth century, Italian missionaries and traders were established in China in the high Middle Ages, and during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in some of the greatest voyages ever made under sail, Iberian explorers crossed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and established footholds in the Americas, Africa and Asia. This is a stimulating and perceptive study, based on wide-ranging research, which makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the influence of empire on both colonial and metropolitan societies.