APPENDIX Summary Descriptions of the Wonders Manuscripts
1 London, bl, Cotton Vitellius A. xv, fols. 94–209
Introductory Bibliography Leonard E. Boyle, ‘The Nowell Codex and the Poem of Beowulf ’, The Dating of ‘Beowulf’, ed. C. Chase, Toronto oe ser. 6, pp. 23–32; Richard W. Clement, ‘Codicological Considerations in the Beowulf Manuscript’, Essays in Med. Culture: Proc. of the Illinois Med. Assoc. 1 (1984), 13–27; David N. Dumville, ‘Beowulf Come Lately. Some Notes on the Palaeography of the Nowell Codex’, asnsl 225 (1988), 49–63; idem, ‘The Beowulf- Manuscript and How Not to Date It’, Med. Eng. Stud. Newsletter 39 (1998), 21–7; Johan Gerritsen, ‘British Library ms Cotton Vitellius A. xv – a Supplementary Description’, es 69 (1988), 293–302; N.R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957); Kevin S. Kiernan, ‘Beowulf’ and the ‘Beowulf’ Manuscript, rev. ed. (Ann Arbor, mi, 1996; first publ. New Brunswick, nj, 1981); idem, with Ionut Emil Iacob, Electronic ‘Beowulf’, 3rd ed. (London, 2011) [1 dvd]; Kemp Malone, ed., The Nowell Codex: British Museum Cotton Vitellius A. xv, Second ms, eemf 12 (Copenhagen, 1963); Elżbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, 900–1066, smibi 2 (London, 1976).
Provenance Vitellius A. xv is made up of two separate codices, originally bound together in ‘about 1612’ while in the possession of the antiquarian, Sir Robert Cotton (1571–1631).1 The first codex (s. xiimed) comprises fols. 4r–93v, discounting the prefixed leaves before the manuscript proper.2 It is known as the ‘Southwick Codex’ from an inscription on fol. 5r showing it once belonged to the priory there.3 The second codex is commonly known as the ‘Beowulf manuscript’ after its most famous text. Less commonly it is called the ‘Nowell Codex’ after Laurence Nowell (c. 1510/20–c. 1571), Anglo-Saxonist and collabo- rator of William Lambarde (1536–1601), whose signature is inscribed on the top of the first surviving page of the codex (fol. 94r).4 Nowell gave Lambarde his collection of
1 C.C.G. Tite, The Manuscript Library of Sir Robert Cotton, The Panizzi Lectures (London, 1994), p. 13. 2 N.R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), p. 279. 3 A description can be found in R. Torkar, ‘Cotton Vitellius A. xv (pt. 1) and the Legend of St Thomas’, es 67 (1986), 290–303 (at 291–298). 4 Further information on Nowell can be found in a series of articles from the 1980s: P.M. Black, ‘Some New Light on the Career of Laurence Nowell the Antiquary’, AntJ 62 (1982), 116–123;
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Dimensions parchment (fire-damaged) c. 245 × 185 mm; written area c. 165–180 × 105–120 mm.
Binding and Condition Vitellius A. xv was badly damaged in a fire at Ashburnham House at Westminster in October 1731. However, it is not listed in the subsequent House of Commons report on the fire as one of the volumes ‘destroy’d or injured’.6 A report of 1756 for the British Museum, excerpted in Hooper’s catalogue, says of the Vitellius manuscripts:
Besides the Damage done by the Fire to the mss of this Press, it hath suffered no less by the Carelessness of those that have been the first employed in preserving them, as well as by the extraordinary Dampness of the Place. The great Humidity, together with the Extension of the Hue which the Fire extracted from those Volumes wrote on Vellum, having rotted the Edges of most of them, defaced the Marks, and afforded both Lodging and Food to numberless Shoals of Worms and other Insects.7
The immediate method of preservation was to disbind wet vellum leaves then press them ‘with a clean Flannel’ before hanging ‘upon Lines, three or four leaves together’; burned vellum leaves, on the other hand, were ‘separated with an Ivory Folder’ so that
T. Hahn, ‘The Identity of the Antiquary Laurence Nowell’, eln 20 (1983), 10–18; and C.T. Berkhout, ‘The Pedigree of Laurence Nowell the Antiquary’, eln 23 (1985), 15–26. 5 S.E. Smith, ‘The Provenance of the Beowulf Manuscript’, anq 13.1 (2000), 3–7. 6 House of Commons Committee on the Cottonian Library, A Report from the Committee Appointed to View the Cottonian Library, and such of the Publick Records of this Kingdom, as they think proper, and to Report to the House the Condition Thereof, together with What They Shall Judge Fit to be Done for the Better Reception, Preservation, and More Convenient Use of the Same (London, 1732), Appendix B, i. 7 S. Hooper, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library. To Which are Added, Many Emendations and Additions. With an Appendix, Containing an Account of the Damage Sustained by the Fire in 1731; and also a Catalogue of the Charters Preserved in the same Library (London 1777), pp. xiii–xiv. The report is printed in full as Appendix i by A. Prescott, ‘“Their Present Miserable State of Cremation”: the Restoration of the Cotton Library’, Sir Robert Cotton as Collector: Essays on an Early Stuart Courtier and his Legacy, ed. C. J. Wright (London, 1997), pp. 391–454.