What is the Cotton shelfmark of the manuscript containing Beowulf?

The manuscript containing Beowulf bears the Cotton shelfmark Cotton MS Vitellius A XV.

This designation belongs to a composite volume in the British Library’s Cotton collection. Beowulf is in the older second part, known as the Nowell Codex, which also contains texts such as The Wonders of the East and Judith. The name Nowell comes from the sixteenth-century antiquarian Laurence Nowell.

The shelfmark reflects Sir Robert Cotton’s library arrangement: “Vitellius” identifies the Roman emperor whose bust topped the bookcase, “A” marks the shelf, and “XV” identifies the fifteenth volume on it. The codex is generally dated to around the turn of the first millennium, often shortly after 1000.

A common mix-up is treating the Nowell Codex and Cotton MS Vitellius A XV as identical names. Strictly, the Nowell Codex is the Beowulf-containing manuscript within the larger bound volume. The manuscript remains the sole surviving copy of the poem, which suffered damage in the 1731 Ashburnham House fire.