Nowell Codex
Encyclopedia
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
containing the unique copy of the epic poem Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
; in addition to this it contains a fragment of The Life of Saint Christopher, and the more complete texts Letters of Alexander to Aristotle, Wonders of the East
Wonders of the East
The Wonders of the East or The Marvels of the East is an Old English prose piece, written around AD 1000. It describes a variety of odd, magical and barbaric creatures that inhabit Eastern regions, such as Babylon, Persia, Egypt, and India...
and Judith
Judith (poem)
The Old English poem "Judith" describes the beheading of Assyrian general Holofernes by Israelite Judith of Bethulia. Various other versions of the Holofernes-Judith tale exist. These include the Book of Judith, still present in the Roman Catholic Bible, and Abbot Ælfric's homily of the tale...
. Due to the fame of Beowulf, it is also sometimes known simply as the Beowulf manuscript. The manuscript is located within the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
with the rest of the Cotton collection
Cotton library
The Cotton or Cottonian library was collected privately by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton M.P. , an antiquarian and bibliophile, and was the basis of the British Library...
.
Name and date
The current codex is a composite of at least two manuscripts. The main division is into two totally distinct books which were apparently not bound together until the 17th century. The first of these dates from the 12th century and contains four works of prose. It is the second, older manuscript that is famous.This second manuscript is popularly known as the Nowell codex, after Laurence Nowell
Laurence Nowell
Two sixteenth-century English cousins, one an antiquarian and the other a churchman, were named Laurence Nowell. Their biographies have been confused since the seventeenth century.-Antiquarian:Laurence Nowell Two sixteenth-century English cousins, one an antiquarian and the other a churchman, were...
, whose name is inscribed on its first page; he was apparently its owner in the mid-16th century. It was then acquired by Sir Robert Cotton
Robert Bruce Cotton
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, 1st Baronet was an English antiquarian and Member of Parliament, founder of the important Cotton library....
. In his library, it was placed as the 15th manuscript on the first shelf of the bookcase that had a bust of Vitellius
Vitellius
Vitellius , was Roman Emperor for eight months, from 16 April to 22 December 69. Vitellius was acclaimed Emperor following the quick succession of the previous emperors Galba and Otho, in a year of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors...
.
The Nowell codex is generally dated around the turn of the first millennium. Recent editions have specified a probable date in the decade after 1000.
Damage
Vitellius A. xv was heavily damaged in 1731 when a fire partially destroyed the Cotton libraryCotton library
The Cotton or Cottonian library was collected privately by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton M.P. , an antiquarian and bibliophile, and was the basis of the British Library...
. While the volume itself survived, the edges of the pages were badly scorched; no serious attempt at restoration was made until the 19th century, by which time the margins had crumbled irreparably, and the edges of many pages are now illegible.
First codex
The first codex contains four works of Old English prose: a copy of AlfredAlfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...
's translation of Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
's Soliloquies, a translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus, the prose Solomon and Saturn
Solomon and Saturn
Solomon and Saturn is a work in the corpus of Anglo-Saxon literature. The work is cast in the form of a dialogue full of riddles, in which Solomon, the wisest king of the land of Israel, and Saturn, the eldest of the elder gods of Roman mythology, though identified in the poem as a prince of the...
, and a fragment of a life of Saint Quentin
Saint Quentin
Saint Quentin , Quintinus in Latin, also known as Quentin of Amiens, is an early Christian saint. No real details are known of his life.-Martyrdom:...
.
Second codex
The second codex begins with three prose works: a life of Saint ChristopherSaint Christopher
.Saint Christopher is a saint venerated by Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, listed as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd century Roman Emperor Decius or alternatively under the Roman Emperor Maximinus II Dacian...
, Wonders of the East
Wonders of the East
The Wonders of the East or The Marvels of the East is an Old English prose piece, written around AD 1000. It describes a variety of odd, magical and barbaric creatures that inhabit Eastern regions, such as Babylon, Persia, Egypt, and India...
(a description of various far-off lands and their fantastic inhabitants), and a translation of a Letter of Alexander to Aristotle.
These are followed by Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
, which takes up the bulk of the volume, and Judith
Judith (poem)
The Old English poem "Judith" describes the beheading of Assyrian general Holofernes by Israelite Judith of Bethulia. Various other versions of the Holofernes-Judith tale exist. These include the Book of Judith, still present in the Roman Catholic Bible, and Abbot Ælfric's homily of the tale...
, a poetic retelling of part of the book of Judith. Great wear on the final page of Beowulf and other manuscript factors such as wormhole patterns indicate Judith was not originally the last part of the manuscript, though it is in the same hand as the later parts of Beowulf.
The somewhat eclectic contents of this codex have led to much critical debate over why these particular works were chosen for inclusion. One theory which has gained considerable currency is that the compiler(s) saw a thematic link: all five works deal to some extent with monsters or monstrous behaviour.
See also
- BeowulfBeowulfBeowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
- Anglo-Saxon literatureAnglo-Saxon literatureOld English literature encompasses literature written in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period from the 7th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066. These works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles, riddles, and others...
- Caedmon manuscriptCaedmon manuscriptMS Junius 11 is one of the four major codices of Old English literature...
- Exeter BookExeter BookThe Exeter Book, Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, also known as the Codex Exoniensis, is a tenth-century book or codex which is an anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry. It is one of the four major Anglo-Saxon literature codices. The book was donated to the library of Exeter Cathedral by Leofric, the...
- Vercelli BookVercelli BookThe Vercelli Book is one of the oldest of the four Old English Poetic Codices. It is an anthology of Old English prose and verse that dates back to the late 10th century...
- Liber MonstrorumLiber MonstrorumThe Liber Monstrorum is a late seventh-or early eighth-century Anglo-Latin catalogue of marvellous creatures, which may be connected with the Anglo-Saxon scholar Aldhelm...
Further reading
- Kiernan, Kevin. Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript. Revised edition. Ann Arbor, U of Michigan P. 1996. Originally published by Rutgers, State University of New Jersey Press, 1981.
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