What is the only surviving manuscript of Beowulf called?

The only surviving manuscript of Beowulf is called the Nowell Codex. It is the older portion of the bound volume officially catalogued by the British Library as Cotton MS Vitellius A XV.

The name Nowell comes from Laurence Nowell, a sixteenth-century antiquarian whose name is written on the manuscript’s first page. The codex is composite: it was assembled from two previously separate manuscripts. The section containing Beowulf also includes texts such as The Wonders of the East, The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, and Judith.

The manuscript was written by two scribes around the turn of the first millennium, probably between about 975 and 1025. It suffered serious damage in the 1731 fire that affected Sir Robert Cotton’s library. The page edges were scorched, and some words later became difficult or impossible to read.

Nowell Codex is often used interchangeably with “the Beowulf manuscript,” but Cotton MS Vitellius A XV is the formal library designation for the entire bound volume. The Exeter Book, Vercelli Book, and Cotton Library are related names from Old English manuscript history, but none is the surviving Beowulf codex.