Edward Christopher Hohler, M.A.

Christopher Hohler was born on 22 January 1917 and educated at Eton and New College, Oxford, where he read modern history.

War was declared soon after he graduated, whereupon he joined the Royal Corps of Signals and was posted to the Combined Intelligence Centre in Iraq. Young and impressionable, Hohler was soon captivated by all things middle eastern. He had plenty of free time to ride the local thoroughbreds (he had been a fearless horseman since childhood holidays at Long Crendon) and, another passion, motor-bikes. He began to learn Arabic with a view to joining the diplomatic service after the war, but in fact his career took a very different turn. To his own astonishment he was invited by Anthony Blunt, on the recommendation of Joan Evans and his former tutor at Oxford, T. S. R. Boase, to join the staff of the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1947. He accepted the invitation and remained there until retirement in 1979. Judged by orthodox academic standards, Hohler's career might be considered pedestrian. He wrote no books and fewer than twenty articles or book reviews in a variety of journals between the early 1950s and late 1970s. But each of these articles is a small masterpiece of exposition and, undeniably, Hohler exercised great influence over young art history students, both at the Courtauld and elsewhere. All the contributors to The Vanishing Past: studies of medieval art, liturgy and metrology presented to Christopher Hohler, edited by his former students Alan Borg and the late Andrew Martindale, had been profoundly affected in their intellectual development by Hohler's rigorous teaching. Since scholarly acclaim and the approval of the academic establishment meant nothing to him, he earned a reputation for eccentricity and, a perfectionist, he rarely completed any of his research projects. He was a committed medievalist with a distaste for all things modern, and never used a typewriter, much less a computer. After Hohler's retirement to Oslo with his Norwegian second wife, the Society's librarian, general secretary and successive presidents received regular letters in his minute, perfectly legible, handwriting on the incredible range of topics which took his fancy, sometimes inspired by articles in Antiquaries Journal. He was a leading member of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society; general editor of the Buckinghamshire Record Society and a vice-president of the Henry Bradshaw Society. A number of edited texts were undertaken by these organizations at his suggestion and with his help. He died on 15 February 1997 in Oslo.