1. Max Förster, Die Beowulf-Handschrift, Berichte über die
Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften auf Leipzig,
Philologisch-historische Klasse 71 (1919); E. V. K. Dobbie, ed., Beowulf and
Judith, ASPR, 4
(New York, 1953); Neil R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon
(Oxford, 1957); Kemp Malone, ed., The Nowell Codex (British Museum Cotton
Vitellius A.XV, Second MS), EEMF (Copenhagen, 1963); Kevin Kiernan, Beowulf and
the Beowulf Manuscript (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1981); Leonard Boyle, "The Nowell
Codex and the Poem of Beowulf," in The Dating of Beowulf (Toronto, 1981), ed.
by Colin Chase. Most of the editions have descriptions of the MS, but no collation. Kenneth
Sisam's two articles "The Beowulf Manuscript" (pp. 61-64) and "The Compilation of the Beowulf
Manuscript" (pp. 65-97) in his Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford,
1953) are very useful, but contain no collation.
2. Kiernan, p. 270.
3. Dobbie, p. xv.
4. Kiernan, pp. 159-163.
5. This was a special session, "The Dating of Beowulf: Critical Responses to
Kevin Kiernan's Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript," organized by Allen Frantzen at
the 1982 meeting of the Modern Language Association in Los Angeles, December 30, 1982.
6. Humphrey Wanley, Antiquae Literaturae Septentrionalis Liber Alter, seu
Humphredi Wanleii Librorum Vett. Septentrionalium, qui in Angliae Bibliothecis extant, nec non
multorum Vett. Codd. Septentrionalium alibi extantium Catalogus Historico-
page 27
Criticus, cum totius Thesauri Linguarum
Septentrionalium
sex Indicibus (Oxford, 1705; reprint, 1970), pp. 218-19.
7. Kiernan, p. 134.
8. See C. E. Wright, "The Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries and the Formation of the
Cottonian Library," in The English Library before 1700: Studies in its History, ed. Francis
Wormald and C. E. Wright (London, 1958), pp. 176-212.
9. Kiernan, p. 134.
10.Ibid 11. Kiernan, pp. 140-41.
12. Kiernan, pp. 141-46.
13. Kiernan, pp. 125-26.
14. Kiernan, p. 151.
15. Boyle, p. 31.
16. Kiernan, pp. 162-167.
