The Nowell Codex is the manuscript that preserves the Old English epic Beowulf.
The codex is also catalogued as Cotton MS Vitellius A XV and is held by the British Library in London. Beowulf occupies most of its second part, alongside texts such as the Wonders of the East, The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, Judith, and other material.
The manuscript was probably copied around the year 1000, though the poem itself was composed earlier. Its pages suffered damage in the Cotton Library fire of 1731, and some edges have deteriorated over time. Modern editions use earlier transcriptions as well as the surviving leaves to help reconstruct damaged readings.
The name Nowell Codex comes from Laurence Nowell, a 16th-century antiquarian whose collection later entered Sir Robert Cotton’s library. “Cotton Manuscript” refers to the shelving system based on busts of Roman emperors, explaining the unusual catalogue name Vitellius A XV.