Simon C. Thomson, Selim 21 (2015–2016): 105–154.
ISSN 1132-631X

The two artists of the Nowell Codex Wonders of the East

Simon C. Thomson
Ruhr-Universität Bochum

The version of Wonders of the East contained in the Nowell Codex has long been seen
as a relatively weak, low-grade production. The text has not been well received: even
the edition produced specifically to represent the texts of the codex uses another
manuscript version as a base text (Fulk 2012). The thirty-one images are frequently
called “crude”, and even more pejorative adjectives have been deployed, including
“absurd” and “ludicrous” (Rypins 1924; Sisam 1953: 78; James 1929: 55, 58). Some
studies, including the most recent discussion of the manuscript, find a “chaotic
vibrancy” in the strangeness, darkness, and lack of clarity found in the images
(Mittman & Kim 2013, Ford 2009: 222). All assume that the lack of technical control
points to the scribe of the text having drawn the images despite a lack of expertise in
drawing.

What has not been recognised before is that there are at least two hands at work in
the images of the text. A number of images show doubled figures, where there is a
clear distinction between the work of a controlled and skilful draughtsman and the
imitative work of a weaker contemporary. Other images can be attributed with more
or less confidence to one artist or the other. One of the most interesting images also
seems to show interference from a later ‘doodler’.

This paper will demonstrate the existence of these two hands. It will point to
some moments in the text where scribe and draughtsmen seem to be in conflict. This
will in turn lead to the brief consideration of some implications for our understanding
of the construction of the codex and the value invested in its production.

Keywords: manuscript; exemplar; artist; frame; monstrous; Wonders of the East;
eleventh century; Beowulf

106 Simon C. Thomson

1. Wonders of the East in the Nowell Codex

The version of Wonders of the East in the Nowell Codex (London, British
Library, Cotton MS Vitellius A. xv, second part) is one witness to an
enormously popular medieval text, recounting a sequence of remarkable
animals, plants, and peoples in distant lands. It has a complex history, being
witnessed in three insular manuscripts and a host of continental copies,
between which there are considerable differences.

1
Along with Nowell’s

version which has just the Old English text are London, British Library,
Cotton MS Tiberius B. v, a Canterbury manuscript from the early eleventh
century, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 614, dated to the twelfth
century. Bodley is entirely in Latin; Tiberius in Latin followed by Old English
section by section. There are numerous versions of a similar text across the
Continent exclusively in Latin. The text’s original epistolary frame was lost or
discarded relatively early, which gives the text that survives a sense of briefly
cataloguing or listing the marvels it describes rather than forming any sort of
narrative.

There are a number of editions of the text of Wonders, most of which
privilege the fuller Tiberius version (Orchard 1995, Fulk 2012). The Nowell
Wonders was transcribed by Stanley Rypins along with the other prose texts of
the manuscript in 1924.

3
More recently, Elaine Treharne included it along

with Beowulf and Judith from the same manuscript in her Anthology of Old
and Middle English Texts, and Asa Mittman and Susan Kim produced a
beautiful edition, with translation, edition, transcription, and facsimile
(Treharne 2009, Mittman & Kim 2013). Facsimiles of the whole manuscript
are also readily available: Kemp Malone’s edition for the Early English

1
Temple notes these three manuscripts as evidence for the popularity of the text

(1976: 22).
2
An authoritative account of the interrelationship of these insular versions and of the

various continental witnesses, as well as derivative texts such as the Liber Monstrorum,
is given by Knock (1981: 21–46); she gives a more concise overview of the complex
picture in McGurk et al. (1983: 88–95). A preçis, particularly focused on the
translation process, is in Knock (1997: 121–126). These update Kenneth Sisam’s more
straightforward but now outdated textual history (1953: 74–80).
3
Joe McGowan is currently working to produce an updated version of this edition,

based on his work and that of the late Phillip Pulsiano. Professor McGowan has been
extremely generous in sharing notes and discussing details of the prose texts and the
manuscript with me.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 107

Manuscripts in Facsimile series has been supplanted by Kevin Kiernan’s
Electronic ‘Beowulf’, now into a third edition with a fourth on the horizon;
Kiernan’s images (though not his apparatus) have been superseded by the
British Library’s ‘Digitised Manuscripts’ online edition, from which I have
taken all of my images (Malone 1963, Kiernan 2011, British Library 2013).

Because they are illustrated, there are also facsimiles specifically of the three
insular Wonders. The English Manuscripts in Facsimile edition of the Tiberius
text (which includes full images of Bodley and Nowell) produced by a team led
by Patrick McGurk builds on and replaces Montague Rhodes James’
‘reproduction’ of the three English versions (McGurk et al. 1983, James 1929).
Mittman & Kim’s (2013) is probably now the standard edition, but they make
some questionable and inconsistent editorial choices, and sidestep the
difficulties of page numbers in the Nowell Codex by introducing a new
foliation which I find very unhelpful. So readings here are my transcriptions
from the manuscript, with my own translations. And, as I have discussed
elsewhere, I follow Kiernan’s foliation system (Thomson 2015).

2. The Nowell Codex images

The quality of the images in Nowell has been much disparaged. James is an
extreme but representative example, calling them a “collection of absurdities
which I am rescuing from perhaps merited oblivion” (1929: 9). This weakness
has resulted in a universal assumption that the scribe of the text (Nowell
Codex Scribe A) drew the images, copying them direct from the exemplar,
relying on Sisam’s analysis that “[u]nless he found them in his original, a
scribe so incompetent in drawing would hardly have ventured on illustrations”

4
Images used here by kind permission of the British Library and are all © The British

Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A. xv. I am also grateful to Julian Harrison, Cillian
O’Hogan, and Andrea Clarke for enabling my physical examination of the manuscript
on 18/03/2015.
5
Kiernan discusses the complexities of the foliation in full, and gives a succinct

explanation of this numbering system (Kiernan 1996: 85–109, 103–104); Orchard
provides a concordance to the foliation of Beowulf (2003: Appendix 1, 268–273);
Mittman & Kim give an overview of foliations of Wonders (2013: 38). Where editors
do not discuss foliation, they generally follow the 1884 system used by the British
Library which, following Kiernan and Orchard, is included in brackets in my
referencing.

108 Simon C. Thomson

(1953: 78). Reading the images as weak and impromptu copies of those in a
more refined exemplar led Sisam and others to conclude that there was no
possibility of deriving any information about the production process or of the
exemplars from them. It has also contributed to the general finding that the
manuscript containing Beowulf, even though it has colour illustrations, was a
low-grade and poorly regarded production in its own time, contributing to a
general privileging of postulated earlier iterations of the poem and a desire to
reject this manuscript’s incarnation (e.g. Lapidge 2000, Neidorf 2014).

The more recent critiques are more toned down than earlier
commentators: James’ “absurd” and Sisam’s “ludicrous” have become
McGurk’s “crude” (an often used adjective in this context, Sisam 1953: 78,
McGurk et al. 1983: regularly throughout 88–95, Knock 1981: 60, Ford 2009:
222). Mary Olson has argued for the playfulness and challenge of the Nowell
images (2003: 133), with some support from Alun Ford who allows them a
“chaotic vibrancy” (2009: 222). More recently, in a number of studies and in
their edition, Susan Kim and Asa Mittman focused on its images and the
interplay between images and text and found much to value (Kim 1997;
Mittman & Kim 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013), but general opinion is clear.
Certainly, there are some images that, while they may not merit such disdain,
are “hardly refined” (Kim 1997: 51).

7
Lack of colour is not intrinsically a mark

of low quality in the period, as shown by the extremely high grade, beautiful
and austere, image of Cnut and Emma presenting a cross in the frontispiece of
Winchester New Minster’s Liber Vitae shown in Figure 1.

8
But the odd

gesture towards coloured outline on the “unclean woman” of 102 (BL105)v,
§27, the lower image in Figure 2, using the same colour as her frame and
giving up after outlining her arms and blotching her chin is untidy and

6
There are of course exceptions to this approach, led by Kiernan (1996), with recent

arguments for the value of this manuscript’s presentation of Beowulf from Bredehoft
(2014), Damico (2015).
7
Although it is worth noting in this context Sally Dormer’s (2012) observation that

“[d]rawing is an unforgiving technique”, and it is thus easier to find ink drawings
wanting than illuminated images.
8
The Liber Vitae is contained in London, British Library, Stowe MS 944, 6–61v. The

image prefaces the codex proper, and is on 6r. As part of the British Library’s
Digitised Manuscripts project, a high-resolution image can be viewed at
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=stowe_ms_944_f006r.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 109

confusing.
9
Only about a half of the frame is coloured, and a small section of it

next to the branch held in her left hand diminishes to a line rather than
continuing as a solid bar for her to break. The draughtsmanship of this image
is also poor, with attempts to show her “eoseles teð” and “eofores teð” (“asses’
teeth” and “boar’s tusks”) barely sustained.

10
What are presumably intended to

be her breasts are added in far too low down, presumably to ensure they could
be seen, as she is explicitly unclothed in the text and her right arm covers
their natural position. In the context of the page she appears even weaker: an
impoverished repetition of the more interesting, but still relatively
unsuccessful, image of the bearded hunting woman above.

Other images, while perhaps not so poorly executed, are puzzling and seem
to have almost no reference to the text. As shown in Figure 3, the example of
the Sigelwara (‘Ethiopian’) who ends the text on 103 (BL106)v, §32, has a
masklike face, appears to be wearing some form of textured all-in-one robe
tunic with legs, and extends his left arm behind him to a much smaller figure
who appears to be a naked woman.

12
The seated man on 103 (BL106)r shown

9
Given the variance between manuscripts and editions, I seek here to use as full a

reference system as possible for the sections and images. Each has a page number and a
sectional number referring to where it comes in the text; my sectional numbering is
the same as that used in Orchard (1995). A full list of the images, by textual section
and page, in the Nowell Wonders is included as an Appendix.
10

As Sisam observes, Nowell is the only version which includes both bestial features –
and it may seem a little unfair to expect an artist to be capable of illustrating this
overwhelming combination (1953: footnote, 79).
11

Olson (2003) tends to read repetition in design as part of a rhythm that works to
construct meaning; but here it seems merely imitative.
12

Although note that, Mittman & Kim aside, all earlier readers of the manuscript
have seen this as a man; see Olson (2003: 143), who counts only three women in the
manuscript where I see four, and the detailed account of the illustrative scheme given
by Knock, with this figure described as a “Man on right outside frame” (McGurk et al.
1983: 103). The shapes on its chest seem to me to resemble the simplistic breast
archetype used for naked women elsewhere in the text, and the dark shape at its
crotch seems more triangular than phallic to me. However, it is no more explicable as
a woman than a man and the distinction is merely an academic one here. This
puzzling image’s use of two figures, one of which is outside the frame, is a little
reminiscent of Jacob walking out of his frame in the Old English Hexateuch (London,
British Library, Cotton MS Claudius B. iv) on 42v, or the angel coming to help St
Peter in the Caligula Troper (London, British Library, Cotton MS Claudius A. xiv)
on 22r. The former can be seen in Dodwell & Clemoes (1974); the latter Backhouse
(1984: plate 157).

110 Simon C. Thomson

in Figure 4 and the council on 102 (BL105)r, §28 or 29, shown in Figure 5,
are similarly baffling, requiring a great deal of work from the reader to fit the
text cleanly. All these discrepancies and weaknesses contribute to a sense that
the artistry is second-rate or even worse.

However, there are stronger images in the text than the ones just noted.
By my judgement, the first ten illustrations at least are well-executed and
coloured.

13
Other images later in the manuscript are also far from “crude”: I

would include in this list of reasonably well-executed work all or part of the
images on 100(96) (BL103)v, §19, of the precious tree (the first image in
Figure 6), the Panotus on 101 (BL104)r, §21, the first Catinos on 103
(BL106)r, §28 and 29 (discussed in more detail below and shown in Figure 7),
and the traveller carrying away a woman on 103 (BL106)v, §30 (the second
image in Figure 8): in my view, fourteen of the thirty-one images do not
deserve to be called “absurd” on any criteria. It is not possible, of course, fully
to resurrect an eleventh-century aesthetic but along with the controlled use of
colour noted above, there is a clear interest in images and text as reflexes of
one another.

14
This is evident in, for instance, the Bury Psalter’s elegant

interactions which have been widely admired (Wormald 1952: 47–49;
Gameson 1995: 39).

15
While the Nowell images cannot be placed on the same

pedestal, they certainly engage with the same dynamic as in, for instance, the
two-headed snake shown in Figure 9. Unlike the Bury Psalter’s lovely cervus,
which drinks from its own name on 54r, this snake hisses aggressively at the
generic name deor (‘beast’) of a rival creature, a line from whose description
seems to have invaded its own space through the scribe’s lack of control.

I have included here the gold-digging ants cycle on 98(100) (BL101)r and the
olfenda on the verso, both of which I argue below to be fundamentally effective
drawings which have been diminished by the presence of a weaker hand (the late
doodler and Draughtsman B respectively).
14

Farr (2013) gives a useful discussion of progress and challenges in our current
understanding of text and image interactions. Barajas (2013) gives an ambitious
discussion of some possible roles of the images in Wonders, primarily focused on those
in Tiberius.
15

The Bury Psalter is Vatican, Biblioteca Aposotolica, Reg. lat. MS 12. Artist F’s
work in the Harley Psalter (BL Harley 603) is another celebrated example of “a more
intimate relationship between word and image”; see Gameson (1995: 112, n.40, cf.
40).
16

Gameson (1995: 39) cites the cervus image in the context of interaction between
image and text. This, and many other delicate drawings from the Bury Psalter, can be
seen in Ohlgren (1992).

The two artists in Wonders of the East 111

Their weakness and poor critical reception aside, I will suggest that the
images can tell us a great deal about how demanding the making of the
manuscript was and the expertise that went into its compilation. Contra all
previous readings of the text, it seems certain that more than one hand
worked on the images, and this has interesting implications for the
circumstances in which this manuscript was made and indeed for the process
of manuscript production in late Anglo-Saxon England more widely.

3. The two artists of the Nowell Wonders

It is well-known that the two scribes of the Nowell Codex take place abruptly,
mid-poetic line in Beowulf on 172 (BL175)v, shown in Figure 10. In an
intriguing analogy, the images on 98(100) (BL101)v, §10, and 103 (BL106)r,
§28, shown in Figures 11 and 7 respectively, clearly show the work of two
different draughtsmen.

17
They exhibit similar patterns. The first shows two

camels (Old English olfendas) against a red background.
18

The first is picked
out neatly, even elegantly. The second shows clear indications of an attempt to
draw an identical animal: it copies details such as the vertical lines inside the
first camel’s ears and the tooth projecting down from the back of its mouth.
But it is drawn altogether more roughly, with less subtlety of line and sense of
proportion. The eye looks manic rather than intelligent, and the snout more
lumpen than deft. Where it passes behind the first camel, this second
draughtsmen did not realize that parts of it should still be visible between its
companion’s tail and rump, and beneath its belly. It is clearly drawn by a much
less skilled and practised hand. It was also clearly an original element of the
drawing, as both camels are blank parchment figures against a red background;
no background colour has been erased to make space for it at some later date.

The same pattern can be observed in the second of these examples on the
penultimate page of Wonders. Two animals, called Catinii in the text, stand
one behind the other, baying up at the writing before them. The first figure is
again elegant, with layered curls and muscle curvature showing the strains to
its mouth and body. It is not quite absurd to compare the control exerted in
its execution with animals from the Bury Psalter, such as those at the foot of

I am deeply indebted to C.L. Fawson, who first suggested two different
draughtsmen to me when looking at the image of hens, §3, 96(98) (BL99)r.
18

Tiberius and Bodley have ylpendas (‘elephants’) in text and images here.

112 Simon C. Thomson

fol. 36. However, the second animal, while mostly lost to manuscript damage,
is clearly in no way comparable. There is no variation in the weight and
thickness of line used to draw it; the first creature’s pert nose becomes a beak;
muscle definition becomes random lines more akin to scars.

It is beyond reasonable doubt that there were two draughtsmen at work on
these two images: I will here call the more skilled hand Draughtsman A and
the less skilled Draughtsman B. Once they have been identified, the possibility
is opened up of seeing them throughout the text and attempting to attribute
the other images to one hand or another. There are, for instance, three very
similar illustrations of trees in the text, all shown in Figure 6. On the basis of
its controlled design and elegant terminal buds, the first, on 100(96)
(BL103)v, §19, can be confidently attributed to Draughtsman A. By contrast,
on the basis of its lack of control and unambitious triangular buds, the second
on 102 (BL105)r, §24, is clearly the work of Draughtsman B. The third, on
103 (BL106)v, §31, is less weak than the second, but does not exhibit
Draughtsman A’s sense of design and (relative) ambition: it is probably the
work of Draughtsman B, and may perhaps indicate him developing his skill. It
is possible to speculate further on both the other doubled images in the text
and on some of the more or less skilled productions, but there is no space to
do so here. In the hope that it will support further interrogation of my
findings and research into the making of this manuscript and artistic practice
in the period generally, a list of the images and their frames, and my cautious
attributions to the different hands, is included as an Appendix.

However, in this context it is worth briefly noting that I see yet another
hand at work in the images of Wonders, and this to be more of a doodler than
a draughtsman. On 98(100) (BL101)r, §9, the text’s largest image elegantly
tells the story of how gold can be stolen from giant ants using three camels as
shown in Figure 12. Parts of the execution are clearly by Draughtsman A: the
camels, which are closer to his Catinos than his camel in the images discussed
above; the tree to which the young camel is tethered, which is similar to the
first tree of Figure 6; given its sophistication, perhaps the overall design was
his. The image is not a masterpiece: the man with his gold is rigid rather than
beautiful; the device used to load gold onto the female camel’s back is
graphically interesting rather than convincing or even particularly clear. The
argument here is not that Draughtsman A was a great artist, just that he was a
competent one with significantly more control than his colleague.

At least two parts of this picture, however, are entirely extraneous and very
poorly executed. A crude ink sketch of one of the massive ants curls around

The two artists in Wonders of the East 113

the scribe’s writing on the first line of the page. It seems to be drawn in
imitation of the most elegant ant which crouches immediately below it, but
misses a front paw because that would cross the word. Beside it is a similarly
crude sketch of an animal’s head. To my eyes, it looks most like an emu; given
its placement it was probably an imitation of the male camel’s head, which has
been lost to fire damage but was probably similar to the female camel’s head
on the other side of the image. Unlike Draughtsman B’s imitative drawings
which fill the frame by doubling animals, these sketches are pre-conceived of
as incomplete. And where B is an unsophisticated draughtsman lacking fine
control of line and form, this hand is genuinely weak: the roughness of the
incomplete ant and camel head exceeds the weakness of Draughtsman B’s to at
least the same extent as his exceeds that of Draughtsman A. It seems likely,
then, that these doodles were made by a later reader who admired the
drawings and sought to imitate them: it could perhaps be linked with the
partial Middle English gloss on 99(95) (BL102)v in two or three hands,
partially shown in Figure 13, but there are so many stages of unidentified
interaction with the Nowell Codex that such a specific connection is unsafe at
best.

19
This analysis does not undermine Mittman and Kim’s finding that, as it

stands, the image is destabilising and dramatic, confronting and encompassing
the text. But it is clear that any such reading is of the codex as it now stands,
not as it was first designed.

It is worth noting that in other documents of the period artists do share
work, but that there is usually both a clear hierarchy and clear separation of
artists. A well-known instance is the early eleventh-century Harley Psalter,
probably produced at Christ Church, Canterbury, in which six different artistic
hands have been identified and there may be more (Gameson 1995: 18; Noel
1995: 94–96, 137–140; cf. Heslop 1990: 175). Each worked on a different
quire and some at different times: here, the variant hands are most likely
connected to a minimisation of time to be taken and control of the burden
given to each individual, as well as with the development of an artefact over
time. As far as I know, there is no known Anglo-Saxon instance of two artists

In addition to the facsimiles cited above, the glossed page is shown in Roberts
(2005: 63). I am grateful to Profs. Winfried Rudolf and Linne Moody and to Dr
Estelle Stubbs for discussing the gloss with me. The gloss is not widely discussed, but
see Leake (1962), Malone (1963: 37), and Kiernan (1996: n.53, 143), all of whom see
two hands.

114 Simon C. Thomson

working in the same quire, let alone the same page – and let alone again the
same image.

In Nowell, it seems to be the case that a less capable artist was given space
to shadow the work of a stronger hand, and that this secondary artist was then
given some illustrations to work on independently. Clearly, this can be placed
in parallel to the “younger” and “older” hands of the manuscript as a whole
(Scribes A and B respectively), although the relationship of those two is still
entirely unclear. We could be witnessing apprenticeship in action, though it
would require considerably more evidence to build any certainty in such a
conclusion. The variation in quality can also be placed in the known context of
artists who travelled to minor houses from the powerful centres: possibly a
resident of a smaller scriptorium is learning from an itinerant professional.

Pat Conner has argued that scribes working together sought to match their
hands in a performance of their spiritual communality (Conner 2013: 46–49).
The shared drawing of an image could be read as an extreme version of this
kind of performative unity, only partially undermined by failure to successfully
match style.

4. Frames and colours

Now it is clear that earlier assumptions about the unthinking reproduction of
the images were wrong, it is important to reconsider the processes that went
into their making. If the images are the result of teamwork rather than Scribe
A incompetently scrawling his exemplar’s images as he went along, then the
making of the Nowell Codex was a more complex and larger affair than has
been previously assumed and the images not necessarily taken direct from an
exemplar. I will therefore briefly discuss some other features of these images:
first their framing and colouration; and then placement and design, to attempt
to clarify this communal process of production. I hope to be able to reinforce

The Winchester Bible is a twelfth-century example of artists working together, with
one of the hands sometimes sketching designs for another to add details and colour;
see Donovan (1993). I am grateful to Richard Gameson for pointing this out to me.
21

Temple (1976: 17) notes the itinerant nature of some scribes; Dormer (2012) adds
artists to this and suggests that some may have been professional members of the laity,
with which Gameson (2012d: 281) agrees; Brownrigg (1978: 240) suggests that major
centres may have sent out their artists on an irregular basis, and that many books
which seem incomplete “may have been waiting in vain for a travelling artist”.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 115

the idea of a collective effort to make the images, and to suggest that the
impression of ‘absurdity’ or ‘crudeness’ they give is at least partly a result of the
project proving to be more creatively challenging than its executors were
equipped to handle, rather than due to pure incompetence.

While it is not possible to identify any consistent movement in the type or
quality of frame used for images, it is clear that the artist made no attempt at
any point to produce an elaborate frame of the type being regularly used at
some of the great centres of textual production during this period, and which
are sometimes regarded as characterising the ‘Winchester’ style.

22
It is possible

to conclude from this that the framing artist was spectacularly unskilled or
ignorant, working entirely inconsistently and with no sensitivity for how his
material was presented; or that his copy text had no frames, or simple lines,
and he was instructed to add them at too late a stage. However, given the clear
attempts to decorate some of the frames in different ways, and the number of
instances where an active decision has been taken to leave off one or more
framing edges or to cross frame and image, it seems more reasonable to
conclude that we have here an active exploration of framing possibilities.

In general, the frames can consistently be seen to be adapting themselves to
images and text. Where there is no space for a frame, as with the ant-camel
image, it is simply left out. Where a frame can have four solid bars, as with the
two-headed man on 98(100) (BL101)v, §11, Figure 14, it does. Where an edge
of a frame cannot be a solid bar because the text comes too close to the image,
it becomes a single ink line, as with the left hand line in the image of camels
(Figure 12) discussed above, or the top edge to the second image of sheep on

Gameson (1995: 193, 195–208) notes that frames of any degree of elaboration were
rarely used for drawings (as opposed to paintings or illuminations), and discusses some
types of decorated frame. On the basis of its lack of Winchester borders, Temple
(1976: 75) places Pierpoint Morgan Library MS 869 into the “Utrecht school”, but
this rigid distinction is probably not entirely tenable – and certainly not applicable by
the mid-eleventh century. Arguing from individual characteristics to identify a school
of origin could equally well suggest that the focus on individual animals with plant
ornament is a feature of Ringerike style, which is plainly not the case here (see Hicks
1993: 246–248 for a straightforward description of Ringerike.) Friedman (1986: 334)
argues that not using ornate frames could have been an intentional act in Tiberius, as
the plain borders there “helps to focus our attention on parts of the monstrous
anatomy which protrude from pictorial space”; cf. Barajas’ discussion of the frames and
their implications (2013: 252).
23

I cannot account for Barajas’ finding that the frames in this manuscript are always “a
solid boundary separating the reader from the wonder” (2013: 252).

116 Simon C. Thomson

95(97) (BL98)v, §2, Figure 15. Or it is left off altogether, as with both images
on 96(98) (BL99)r, §3 and 4, Figure 16. The framer did not lack ambition: he
adds decoration to the corners of his very first frame (the first image in Figure
15), some decorative bars to frames,

24
and he was perhaps responsible for the

elegance of the frame shaped like an architectural arch on 103 (BL106)r, §28
or 29, Figure 4. But the space occupied by text and images simply did not give
him enough room to do more in most instances. In some instances, the framer
is given a choice between drawing his frame through the text or through the
image: he can be seen to change his mind in Figure 17, where a line is
extended for the frame at the foot of the image, but the vertical bar is drawn
an inch or so inside that, so that two thirds of the frame’s bar is not covered
by the man’s arm. Given the occasional ambition of the frames, he may have
been identical with Draughtsman A, but this does not seem likely given the
lack of concern for framing shown by the draughtsman in his execution of
images such as this one. Given that some difficulties encountered in framing
result from the placement of text, Scribe A is not likely to have been the
framer either; it is plausible that this was a third hand brought in to finish the
text off, perhaps with frames and colour. It is also possible that Draughtsman
A, having completed his images, was then asked to add frames in. This
minimises the hands involved in execution, and also explains the lack of
preparation for framing in the execution of images. Either way – with a third
hand coming in to frame, or an external pair of eyes critiquing the lack of
frames – the process of production is complex.

There are a number of instances, including those noted above, where the
violation of framed boundaries in the Nowell Wonders makes the celebrated
intrusion into frames employed by the Anglo-Saxon Psychomachia, where, for
instance, the excesses of Luxuria’s dancing are emphasised by her hands and
feet entering the bars of the frame, appear rather tame and feeble.

25
This may

On 96(98) (BL99)v, 101 (BL104)v and 102 (B105)v. Mittman & Kim (2013) note
the variation in frames, discussing it in detail pp.137–181, see especially pp.144–147;
they list the different frame types as Appendix B, pp.241–244.
25

Broderick (1982: 40) identifies frame-violation as a particularly Anglo-Saxon trait.
Friedman (1986: 324) regards Nowell’s frame-violations as comparable with the
various manuscripts of Prudentius’ Psychomachia, but I go further than him: where
Luxuria and Superbia, for instance, merely enter the bar of their frames, most of the
Nowell images crash through the whole of their frames and enter the text-space.
Susan Kim (1997: 40) is, I think, correct when she identifies the Nowell images as
“characterised by their aggressive and persistent movement outside their frames”.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 117

represent part of a movement towards the unframed freedom epitomised by
the Utrecht Psalter and its insular imitators.

26
It could also be read as part of

the same impulse towards violation and eruption that, so it has been argued,
the Tiberius illustrations use (again, comparatively tamely) to suggest the
wildness and danger of the marvels.

27
A number of Tiberius’ images seem to

emphasise the scale of figures by showing them straining against framed
boundaries, but this is plainly nothing like as extreme as Nowell’s giant man
on 99(95) (BL102)r, §12 or 13, shown in Figure 17, whose fist explodes out of
the withdrawn frame noted above. As with the use of colour, on its own terms
and in the context of the eleventh century, the Nowell Wonders seems at least
adequate and – compared with the admired breaking in Psychomachia – radical
and exciting in its aesthetic impact. This is not to claim extreme
sophistication. One of the most widely discussed and admired images in
Tiberius is that of the Blemmya, who grips his frame and stares out at the
viewer, a level of dimensional play never present in Nowell.

Colours were added after the images and frames were drawn. In places, the
colourist misunderstands what Draughtsman A has drawn: he paints the front
camel’s leg in as background in the image shown in Figure 11; he confuses the
clothes of a shepherd and the extended ears of its sheep-like beast on 99(95)
(BL102)r, §14, Figure 18. As often in this codex, errors may be revealing: it
follows that the colourist was probably not Draughtsman A, but he could have
been Draughtsman B, or the scribe, or the framer, or all three. As discussed
above, colour is inconsistently applied, in general moving from rich and
glowing early images to stripped back, bare images later in the text. It may
perhaps be the case that the colours simply ran out, leaving the colourist with
the choice of highlighting with red or doing nothing in the last few pages.

Prudentius’ Psychomachia is in London, British Library, Additional MS 24199, and the
images are discussed most thoroughly in Wieland (1997).
26

The Utrecht Psalter (Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae MS I
Nr 32) is discussed in a number of places. See for instance Wormald (1952: 21). The
style it inspired is usually called the “Utrecht style” and is distinguished from the
“Winchester school”. Wormald (1952) describes these styles in detail, and Friedman
sees the Nowell images as “very like those of the earliest ‘Winchester school’” (1986:
322). I see no particular reason to assign them to one ‘school’ or the other: not least
because, if there ever were any clear distinctions they were breaking down by the early
eleventh century, and are only readily identifiable in very fine work where style can be
easily discerned.
27

Violation of frames is frequently discussed – see for instance Wormald (1952: 28).

118 Simon C. Thomson

This easy process is a little disrupted by the tree on the final page, but it is just
possible that the three trees were coloured at the same time. The impression
of a set amount of red/orange pigment being produced for this project is
reinforced by the opportunistic colouring of some capital letters early in
Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle, which follows Wonders in the manuscript, as
shown in Figure 19.

28
A limited amount of colour, produced specifically for

this manuscript and used with injudicious excess in the early images, continues
to make it seem as though this copy of Wonders was produced in a scriptorium
with ambitions somewhat in excess of its experience and capacity. All of the
difficulties in planning text, image, frames, and colours also make it likely that
the exemplar was not being exactly reproduced as the various hands seem to
have a clear idea of the general direction of their work without knowing
precisely what they are producing. I will therefore move on to briefly consider
the planning of the images in the text before a final consideration of
exemplars.

5. The planning and control of the images

The image spaces were certainly pre-planned: on occasion, Scribe A assumes
space is needed for an illustration which is then not used. In the image of the
giant man noted above on 99(95) (BL102)r, §13, Figure 17, for instance, five
of the nine lines of text to the left of the first drawing all end with relatively
large amounts of space. The scribe is clearly concerned about having enough
space for text, as he starts a new section with a marginal capital on the very
last line of the page. He could have saved at least a manuscript line by utilizing
these gaps, and certainly had no qualms about text abutting and even,
occasionally, crossing into an image. But he leaves the space, expecting it to be
filled. The draughtsmen did not need the whole space, and the framer chose
to bring the left edge of his frame close in to the image, so a gap is left. On
occasion, details of the images are so well designed to fill the space
coincidentally left by letter shapes that they must have been drawn second:
protruding feet on 100(96) (BL103)v, §20, and 101 (BL104)r, §21, Figure 20,
for instance, neatly occupy the spaces left by letters without ascenders.

Four initials are coloured: the first large H, a marginal C, and a mid-line O on 104
(BL107)r.1, 8 & 13 respectively, and then, less explicably, a mid-line O on
(BL108)v.2, ten capitals later.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 119

It is equally clear that the text was not always written before the image.
The unframed ant-camel image (Figure 12) discussed above was drawn before
the text underneath it was written. There are five ruled lines beneath it.
However, Draughtsman A seems here not to have understood that a ruled line
of text needs a fairly significant amount of space above it to be used for
writing. The feet of his stylized tree (more like a tripod) extend very close to
the ruled line. As shown in Figure 21, when he wrote below it, Scribe A had
to compress the d of londbunis which is much smaller and closer to bilinear
than his usual, taller and concave-down, allograph. That some images were
drawn before the text and some after strongly suggests that Scribe A and the
two draughtsmen were working in the same place and at more or less the same
time: the draughtsman worked on some pages while the scribe worked on
others. It cannot usually be deduced which came first of image and text, but it
is useful to have conclusive evidence that both sequences took place at
different times. It is suggestive that the ant-camel image is the only one
certainly drawn before the scribe worked on the page. Possibly, this was the
only time this sequence held. If so, this may have been because the image was
an innovation, a possibility I will go on to consider in due course.

It is also worth noting that Scribe A’s regard for image space is not
consistent. As in the two-headed snake example, his text seems to spill over
the ends of pages and into what should be image spaces, certainly at 96(98)
(BL99)r and 98(100) (BL101)r as shown in Figure 16 and Figure 12, and to
some degree elsewhere. Given that the scribe and draughtsman were working
together, at the same time and place, it is possible that the scribe worked on
these pages and handed them over, that Draughtsman A complained about the
interference with his image space, and that the scribe subsequently worked
harder to maintain the boundaries (which, as it turns out, the draughtsmen
did not always need after all). Such a sequence of events is clearly merely a
speculative reconstruction, but makes sense of the shifts in behaviour indicated
by the evidence.

To return to the main thread, given that the image spaces were pre-
planned, it would be understandable if there were a relatively consistent plan
and layout. The text gestures towards this. Each section starts on a new line
and with a marginal capital, and the most frequent layout is to place two
wonders on each page, each with an accompanying image, surrounded on

120 Simon C. Thomson

three sides by text, as shown in Figure 22.
29

However, this ‘default’ design
only appears on seven of the seventeen sides of Wonders. The variation mostly
results from significant variation in both the size of images and the length of
the text’s sections,

30
with the added complication that some sections describe

more than one wonder requiring illustration. As a result, three pages add an
extra image between my spaces i and ii; two pages enlarge one of the images to
occupy the full width of the page; three have only one illustration and two
consecutive pages are completely anomalous, with 97(99) (BL100)v having no
images at all and with 98(100) (BL101)r having one large picture which
occupies almost all the page, which does mean that the open book resembles
the ‘default’ layout, with an image to the right of the text.

31
Sometimes, text-

space is reduced because the images are larger, or laid out portrait rather than
landscape. The most striking example of this is on 102 (BL105)v, Figure 2,
where the two images of women leave so little space that only one line of text
can cross the full width of the page.

6. Variant styles; multiple exemplars

There are a number of indications that at least some of the images did not
come directly from an exemplar. First, there are two illustrations for one
wonder: the generous men who give visitors women (§30) to take away are
shown on recto and verso of 103 (BL106), Figure 8. The first image shows
two men saying farewell; the second shows a man, presumably a visitor,
carrying a woman away with him. Even with the top of the second image and
the right hand side of the first missing, it is clear that they are drawn in
strikingly different styles. The first has a divided frame, like that deployed for
the bearded woman and her hunting animals (the upper image in Figure 2),
shod feet, and elegant draping, recognisably Anglo-Saxon clothes including
pointed shoes that seem to curl up at the tip. In style, the figures are close to

I am following Gameson’s (2012b: Figure 2.17, 69) presentation of page layout. Of
the schemes he identifies, Nowell is closest to his ‘C’, which he describes as “less
complicated” but also “less popular” (2012b: 70).
30

As noted by Olson (2003: 133), “there is little consistency in the size of the
illustrations”.
31

Knock (1983: 96) also notes this repeated break down of the planned sequence in
Vitellius.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 121

the third man in the council on the mountain on 102 (BL105)r, and to the
priest in his temple on 101 (BL104)v, both shown in Figure 23. The second
image of the generous men narrative, showing a visitor carrying the woman he
has been given, uses an uncoloured linear design suggestive of decorated
clothes rather than the flowing garments of the previous image. Rocks provide
a floor for the man to stand on, and both are unshod. What can be seen of the
woman’s face is drawn in the same style as the preceding image. The first has
coloured clothes with blank parchment background; the second a lightly
tinted background and no colour for the clothes. In short, as well as
unnecessarily providing two images for one section, the two images have quite
different illustrative styles, although I would (cautiously) attribute them both
to Draughtsman A.

The variation in style persists throughout the text.
32

The council on the
mountain, §25, noted above and shown in full in Figure 5, gives three
different men. At the right of the stylized table is the figure noted above and
shown in Figure 23, whose face is made of straight lines and angles; in the
centre and on the left, as shown in Figure 23, are two more figures drawn
completely differently. They share the elongated nose, bulging chin, and
prominent eyebrows also given to the bearded huntress on 101 (BL105)v, §26
and the shepherd on 99(95) (BL102)r, §14.

Indeed, in this second image, the shepherd’s face is utterly at odds with
that of the Hostes it faces. It is expressionistic and dominated by a single eye;
lines continue from its clothing into its neck, suggesting gaunt, stretched
flesh.

33
Other details, such as the crook, the hand holding it, and both feet,

seem clumsily, rapidly drawn in to supplement this craning head. He seems to
be dressed in a simple belted tunic, with lines showing the bulge of his belly.
The figure facing it across the frame wears a full-length black robe, with no
apparent texturing to the material. The fat sausages which form the shepherd’s
fingers are a world away from the Hostes’ elegantly shaped outstretched right
hand and the left hand, just about visible where it holds a human leg, has a
realistic grasp which could hardly be less like the crook, drawn in around the
shepherd’s hand with no particular interest in showing how the two are
linked. His face is from another school. Gone are the shepherd’s distorted,

Though this is not as remarkable as might be thought: as Gameson notes, “variant
styles [...] regularly coexist”, in ‘Anglo-Saxon Scribes and Scriptoria’, Gameson, ed.,
History of the Book (2012): 94–120, 111.
33

James (1929: 55) calls him “[a]n absurd man, with a staff”.

122 Simon C. Thomson

expressive features, replaced by a small, neat face on a clean and upright
throat. The animal between them shows a third style. It is one of the “wildeor
þa hatton lertices” (‘wild animals that are called Lertices’). Coloured a uniform
golden yellow (apart from, as noted above, its ears which the colourist
assumed to be part of the shepherd’s clothing), with pen markings showing
the texture of its wool, the animal feels like a moment from a tapestry;
something static and two-dimensional placed into a frame. The attempt at
huge talons adds to this sense of flat illustration.

34
Possibly the variations in

style could be linked with the variations in quality discussed above, and
attributed to different artists: if so, the two hands collaborated on a large
number of images.

This composite image comes at the end of a two-page spread, shown in full
in Figure 25, which is thoroughly confused in layout. The mistakes, and the
rather drastic steps taken to ameliorate them, are further evidence that the
image scheme was being freshly created for this copy of the text (cf. McGurk
et al. 1983: 96, n.20, 96). As noted above, the clear intention in Wonders is to
connect text with the relevant image. This was already difficult by the end of
the second page, with a full manuscript line at the end of §4 having to be
moved to the first line of 96(98) (BL99)v, intruding in the planned image
space as partially shown in Figure 9. However, by the start of the double
spread of 98(100) (BL100)v and 99(95) (BL100)r, the alignment of text and
image space has fallen apart completely and only comes back into line through
some artistic innovation. On the first side, two image spaces illustrate §10 and
§11, neatly beside the text for §11 and §12, respectively. The next page
contains the rest of §12, the whole of §13 and §14, and the start of §15. Next
to §13, which describes the cannibalistic Hostes, is an illustration of a long-
haired naked man holding a piece of foliage of some sort (the giant man of
Figure 18). This may be an attempt to illustrate §12, given the statement that
the people are “monu swa leona heafdu” (‘maned like lions’ heads’); possibly
the foliage is a response to the text’s obscure “hy habbað micelne muð swa
fon” (‘they have a great mouth like a fan’): illustrating the fan rather than the
mouth. On the other hand, the man has seven lines beneath his prominent
breasts, which could be a response to the “sidan mid breostum seofon / fota
lange” (‘sides with breasts seven / feet long’) attributed to the Hostes in §13

This is one of not many examples that I can find to support Friedman’s (1986: 324)
estimation of the illustrations as “like curious statues on display”. The image is actually
very similar, apart from the length of ears, to the Lertex in Tiberius, on 82r.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 123

which is beside the image. It is perhaps possible that the manuscript line break
after the number may have inspired the seven lines of “breast”. The same set of
line recurs in the long eared Panotus, §21, on 101 (BL104)r, so it may just be
an archetype for nakedness, possibly showing ribs, available to the
draughtsman. Or the image may in fact be a creative attempt to bring in
features of both of these alarming giant men.

As noted above, the Hostes is certainly shown in the second picture on the
page: a dark figure with a bestial head, holding a human leg to demonstrate its
cannibalism.

36
Here, it has been integrated into the image for §14, the sheep-

like Lertex. Perhaps in order to balance the humanoid figure towering over the
animal which is after all the subject of the text, the expressive shepherd
discussed above, which has no textual basis, is included. It is quite likely that
this second, dark-clothed Hostes was based on that in an exemplar, because the
detail of its blackness is omitted from the Nowell text and so the colourist
cannot have worked out how to colour it without an exemplar or a fortunate
coincidence. The draughtsmen of the Nowell Wonders, in order to rebalance
the confused image scheme, seem to have integrated the illustrations for §12
and §13, and those for §13 and §14; then to have recognised the aesthetic
imbalance this created in §14 and added an additional figure. That the extra-
textual shepherd is drawn from a different archetype than the Hostes suggests
that it was either from a different exemplar altogether, or from the artist’s
mind; either conclusion places it alongside the similarly conceived figures
which appear elsewhere in the text as not from the same exemplar as the
Hostes and related figures. And that such confusion in the alignment of text
and image occurs on this double page is interesting. It comes immediately
after the large ant-camel image which is, as noted above, the only image in
Wonders certainly drawn before the text was written, has no analogue in the
other versions of the text, and may well be original to Nowell.

Compare Tiberius 81v, where the separate images are side by side and very similar.
The image has confused most readers; see for instance McGurk et al. (1983: n.20, 96).
36

A human leg is also used to emblematise the cannibalism of the Donestre, §20, on

100(96) (BL103)v.

124 Simon C. Thomson

7. Suggestions

Far from “ludicrous” or even “crude”, the images in Wonders are, at worst,
interesting and informative. Their modern reception has suffered by
comparison with the more polished and colourful versions of the text in
Tiberius and Bodley; when considered in isolation, on their own merit, or in
comparison with some other significant artistic achievements of the period,
there is a great deal to admire even without going as far as Olson or Mittman
and Kim in a modern re-envisioning of Anglo-Saxon manuscript art as
engaged with instability and uncertainty. There was clearly more than one
hand at work on the text, and that matters. It demonstrates the communal
nature of the project that made the Nowell Codex, and the investment of
time, energy, and resources that it required. The planning of images can
reasonably be described as sophisticated, but in some senses in excess of the
capacity of the scribe and draughtsmen.

The mistakes the team made in executing the design seem generally to
indicate some areas of significance for understanding of the codex as a whole.
First, that there is a second artist working with less skill and operating
sometimes literally behind the main artist provides an intriguing (though not
precise) parallel with the two scribes and is suggestive of a relatively large
scriptorium where there were enough resources to produce a secular text in
the vernacular with full-colour illustrations and, moreover, to use it to some
extent as a training ground; or, perhaps, a secular house which carefully
planned and assembled the human and material resources for this project.
Second, Scribe A, who writes a relatively new hand with confidence, exhibits a
degree of inexperience in shaping his text around the planned image spaces
and seems to vary his behaviour based, perhaps, on feedback, which may
indicate uncertainty or naïvety. Third, there are some indications that this
copy of Wonders was making innovations with its source materials and that
these innovations caused the challenges in its production. We are given a
strong impression of a piece of work conceived with ambition and executed to
the best of its producers’ abilities. In turn, this is suggestive of possible
experimentation, an over-ambitious commissioner, or a project designed as a
learning experience. The evidence for two artists working together in the
Nowell Codex Wonders of the East has implications for our reading of Beowulf

The two artists in Wonders of the East 125

in its manuscript context, and for future research into the processes of
commissioning and producing manuscripts in the Anglo-Saxon period.

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‘Letter of Alexander the Great’, ‘Wonders of the East’, ‘Life of St. Christopher’, EETS
161, London, Oxford University Press.

128 Simon C. Thomson

Sisam, Kenneth 1953: ‘The compilation of the Beowulf-manuscript’, in Kenneth Sisam
ed. Studies in the History of Old English Literature, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1953,
65–96.

Temple, Elźbieta 1976: Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066. A Survey of Manuscripts
Illuminated in the British Isles Volume 2, London, Harvey-Miller.

Thomson, S.C. 2015: ‘Manuscript stability and literary corruption: Our failure to
understand the Beowulf manuscript’, Quaestio Insularis 15: 54–71.

Treharne Elaine ed. 2009: Old and Middle English c. 890–c. 1450: An Anthology,
Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 3

rd
edition.

Wieland, Gernot R. 1997: ‘The origin and development of the Anglo-Saxon
Psychomachia illustrations’, Anglo-Saxon England 26: 169–186.

Wormald, Francis 1952: English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries, London,
Faber & Faber.

Manuscripts
London, British Library, Additional MS 24199
London, British Library, Cotton MS Claudius A.xiv
London, British Library, Cotton MS Claudius B.iv
London, British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius B.v
London, British Library, Cotton MS Vitellius A.xv
London, British Library, Harley MS 603
London, British Library, Stowe MS 944
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 614
New York, Pierpoint Morgan Library MS 869
Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae MS I Nr 32
Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, Reg. lat. MS 12

The two artists in Wonders of the East 129

Appendix: Images and colours used in Wonders of the East

# Page Sect Contents of image Frame Colours

used

Probable

artist

1 95(97)

(BL98)v

1 Single ram standing

on rocks looking to

right away from text.

Four solid

bars, floreate

decorations

in each

corner.

Blue, yellow,

black,

(parchment)

2 95(97)

(BL98)v

2 Two rams standing on

rocks looking left and

down to text.

Three solid

bars, line

across top

Yellow,

orange,

(parchment)

3 96(98)

(BL99)r

3 Two hens, one

(cockerel?) with left

wing outstretched.

Three black

lines, open

to text on

left.

Yellow,

orange,

black

4 96(98)

(BL99)r

4 Two-headed eight-

legged animal with

lolling tongues and

wide eyes looking left

at text.

Solid bars at

top and

bottom,

open to text

at left; right

side lost to

damage:

probably

originally

three sided.

Yellow,

black,

(parchment)

A & B

5 96(98)

(BL99)v

5 Two-headed patterned

snake across page with

‘hiss’ lines towards

text.

Unframed. Red, yellow,

blue, black,

(parchment)

6 96(98)

(BL99)r

6 Two animals as if from

above, vertical in

frame: on left a

patterned snake; on

right a reptilian

creature with horns

and a bushy tail.

Four solid

bars,

decoration

to three

edges.

Yellow,

black, red,

blue

130 Simon C. Thomson

7 97(99)

(BL100)r

7 Dog-headed man

dressed in Anglo-

Saxon robes with

?leggings and shoes.

Four solid

bars.

Red, blue,

brown,

yellow, black

8 98(100)

(BL101)r

9 Baby camel tied to a

tree; man in Anglo-

Saxon dress with

female camel loaded

with gold pieces in a

harness on rocks;

across a river, large

ants around pieces of

gold; male camel

chained around the

neck being bitten by

two ants.

Unframed. Black, red,

yellow, light

blue,

(parchment)

A (and

later

additions)

9 98(100)

(BL101)v

10 Two camels facing left

towards text on rocks.

Bars at top

and bottom;

possible bar

to right but

lost to

damage;

waving black

line as

fourth bar

separating

from text.

Red, yellow,

orange,

(parchment)

A & B

10 98(100)

(BL101)v

11 Man with two faces

(one facing left, the

other right) holding a

horn in right hand and

foliate sceptre in left.

Four solid

bars.

Light blue,

black,

orange,

yellow,

(parchment)

11 99(95)

(BL102)r

?12

(or

13)

?Naked man with long

hair facing left towards

text and holding

upside-down foliate

sceptre in right hand

next to text.

Four solid

bars.

Red, yellow,

(parchment)

B & A

The two artists in Wonders of the East 131

12 99(95)

(BL102)r

13 &

Sheep-like Lertex with

long ears and talons on

feet, facing old

shepherd with crook

on left of frame; beast-

headed figure dressed

in black on right of

frame holding a leg in

left hand and with

right hand

outstretched.

Three

thickly

drawn black

lines,

probable

fourth on

right lost to

damage.

Black,

yellow, light

blue,

(parchment)

13 99(95)

(BL102)v

15 Headless man with

moustachioed face in

his chest, in Anglo-

Saxon dress and

leggings standing on

rocks.

Four solid

bars.

Red, yellow,

(parchment)

14 99(95)

(BL102)v

16 Two striped snakes,

entwined, across the

width of the page,

with bearded chins.

Unframed,

though

boxed in

with a thin

line on the

right of the

page.

Light blue,

yellow

(parchment)

15 99(95)

(BL102)v

17 A man’s torso with

arms outstretched and

a bracelet on each

wrist, possibly singing

and facing the text, on

a dokey’s body,

standing on rocks.

Bar on the

left side,

another half

way up on

the right

and a short

one from

that into the

body.

Possibly a

bar at the

bottom lost

to damage.

Black,

yellow,

orange, red,

(parchment)

132 Simon C. Thomson

16 100(96)

(BL103)r

18 Two circles each with

hubs, a set of spokes

set in a Greek cross,

and a thin set of

spokes set in an X.

Four solid

bars.

Orange, red,

black,

(parchment)

17 100(96)

(BL103)v

19 A tree with three

trunks rising out of

entwined roots with a

canopy of leaves and

three flowers.

Unframed,

with thin

line at

bottom.

Blue, yellow,

orange, red,

a washed out

red,

(parchment)

18 100(96)

(BL103)v

20 On left, a humanoid

figure with a reptilian

head, naked with

exposed phallus,

holding a leg; on

right, a woman with

long hair and dress

with flowing skirts

apparently held up to

expose legs, one foot

cut off at the ankle.

Four solid

bars, thinner

on the right

and at the

top where it

gives way to

writing.

Red,

(parchment)

19 101

(BL104)r

21 A man, possibly naked

and drawn in the same

style as §11, facing

away from the text,

with large, trumpet-

like ears and holding a

small bow or possibly

harp, with foliage in

the bottom right

corner.

Three solid

bars,

probable

fourth on

the right

lost to

damage.

Red,

(parchment)

B & A

20 101

(BL104)v

22 Man in Anglo-Saxon

dress with leggings

and long hair, top half

of face lost to damage.

Three solid

bars,

probable

fourth at top

lost to

damage.

Red, blue,

orange,

yellow,

(parchment)

The two artists in Wonders of the East 133

21 101

(BL104)v

23 An elaborate building

with main central

tower and two

flanking towers, image

of a sun on low wall at

centre bottom, with

head and shoulders of

a robed man above it.

Three solid

bars, with

bottom bar

formed of

three bars

making the

building's

foundation.

Red, yellow,

orange, blue,

(parchment)

22 102

(BL105)r

24 A tree with three

trunks rising out of

entwined roots, two

prongs emerging with

buds on the ends, top

lost to damage.

No frame

visible.

Blue, red,

yellow,

(parchment)

23 102

(BL105)r

25 A ?table stretching

across the page formed

of five large circles,

possibly shields, piled

together, with three

layers of pedestal

emerging to the left,

with three men sat

behind it, heads and

shoulders visible, two

apparently in

conversation.

No frame,

though bar

across

bottom

could be

partial frame

or part of

image.

Blue,

orange,

yellow, red,

black,

(parchment)

B & A

134 Simon C. Thomson

24 102

(BL105)v

26 A woman with long

hair and beard, facing

away from the text and

holding an hourglass

shaped club in her left

hand; right hand third

of the image is

separated with a

straight line and has a

dog-like animal at

right angles to the

woman and apparently

on rocks.

Solid bars,

one with

decoration,

around three

sides, open

to right

away from

text.

Orange,

brown,

(parchment)

25 102

(BL105)v

27 A naked woman,

facing away from the

text, with long hair

and perhaps a tail,

with the lower curve

of breasts visible

beneath her right arm,

and left arm holding a

sceptre.

Four solid

bars, one on

right

becoming a

thin line at

the top.

Orange,

(parchment)

26 103

(BL106)r

28 or

A man facing away

from the text and

sitting on a cushion

inside a decorated

arch, with left hand

(possibly holding

something) lost to

damage.

Decorated

arch within

which figure

sits forms

frame.

Yellow, red,

(parchment)

27 103

(BL106)r

28 &

Two cat like animals

baying towards the

text.

No frame. (Parchment) A & B

The two artists in Wonders of the East 135

28 103

(BL106)r

30 Image space divided in

half by a straight line,

with a man in the left

side in Anglo-Saxon

dress carrying a crook

and seemingly waving

to the other man, who

is mostly lost to

damage but what

remains looks near

identical to the first.

Three solid

bars,

possibly

fourth on

right lost to

damage.

Orange,

yellow,

brown, blue,

(parchment)

29 103

(BL106)v

30 Man carrying a woman

with long red hair,

both clothed, standing

on rocks. Both faces

lost to damage.

Three solid

bars,

possibly

fourth at top

lost to

damage.

Red, yellow,

(parchment)

30 103

(BL106)v

31 A tree with four

trunks rising out of a

bed of earth with a

canopy of leaves and

two buds.

No frame,

but line at

bottom.

Red, yellow,

blue

31 103

(BL106)v

32 Man with mask-like

face and perhaps a

circular hat, holding a

foliate sceptre towards

text in his right hand,

with trailing left hand

reaching to small

figure, possibly a

naked woman.

Four solid

bars around

main figure.

Orange,

(parchment)

136 Simon C. Thomson

Figure 1. Frontispiece to Liber Vitae, London, British Library, Stowe MS 944, 6r. ©
The British Library Board, Stowe 944.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 137

138 Simon C. Thomson

The two artists in Wonders of the East 139

140 Simon C. Thomson

Figure 6. The three trees 100(96) (BL103)v, §19; 102 (BL105)r, §24; 103 (BL106)v,
§31. © The British Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A. xv.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 141

Figure 8. The two illustrations of generous men on 103 (BL106)r & v, §30. © The
British Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A. xv.

142 Simon C. Thomson

Figure 11. Two camels drawn by different hands on 98(100) (BL101)v, §10. © The
British Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A. xv.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 143

Figure 12. Large illustration of stealing gold from ants with camels and detail of
doodles on 98(100) (BL101)r, §9. © The British Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A.
xv.

144 Simon C. Thomson

The two artists in Wonders of the East 145

146 Simon C. Thomson

The two artists in Wonders of the East 147

Figure 16. Hens and eight-legged wilddeor on 96(98) (BL99)r, §3 and 4. © The
British Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A. xv.

148 Simon C. Thomson

Figure 18. Lertex with shepherd and Hostes on 99(95) (BL102)r, §13 and 14. © The
British Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A. xv.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 149

150 Simon C. Thomson

Figure 20. Protruding feet of figures on 100(96) (BL103)v, §20, and 101 (BL104)r,
§21. © The British Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A. xv.

Figure 21. Letters shaped around a detail from 98(100) (BL101)r, §9. © The British
Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A. xv.

The two artists in Wonders of the East 151

Figure 22. Regular plan for page layout.

152 Simon C. Thomson

Figure 23. Examples of one face type, shown on 101 (BL104)v (priest in his temple,
§22) and 102 (BL105)r (third figure in the council, §25). © The British Library
Board, Cotton Vitellius A. xv.

Figure 24. Examples of another face type, shown on 102 (BL105)r (first two figures in
the council, §25) and bearded huntress 101 (BL105)v, §26. © The British Library
Board, Cotton Vitellius A. xv.

Figure 25. Two page spread, 98(100) (BL101)v
British Library Board, Cotton Vitellius A. xv.

The two artists in Wonders of the East

153

14. © The

154 Simon C. Thomson

Author’s address
Englisches Seminar
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
D-44780 Bochum, Germany received: 9 December 2015
e-mail: simon.thomson@rub.de revised version accepted: 15 June 2016