Relevant terms for this context, adapted for context from Dictionary.com unless otherwise noted and linked in parentheses:

• philology: 1. the study of literary texts and of written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning. 2. (especially in older use) linguistics, especially historical and comparative linguistics.

• scribe: a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of printing.

• miniscule script: 1. (of letters or writing) small; not capital. 2. a small cursive script developed in the 7th century CE from the uncial, which it afterward superseded

• majuscule script: 1. large, as either capital or uncial letters. 2. designating, written in, or pertaining to a form of majuscule writing having a curved or rounded shape and used chiefly in Greek and Latin manuscripts from about the 3rd to the 9th century CE.

• vernacular: expressed or written in the native language of a place, as literary works

• authorial archetype: as used by Niedorf below, the original first version of a story created by the original author or storyteller (Niedorf, 2017)

• parchment: the skin of sheep, goats, etc., prepared for use as a material on which to write.

• provenance: a record of ownership of a work of art or an antique, used as a guide to authenticity or quality (Oxford Languages)

Beowulf is an epic poem from England, written in Old English and the one surviving manuscript (contained in Cotton MS Vitellius A XV) is believed to be copied around 1000 CE from much earlier manuscripts that did not survive. The origins of the actual story are quite murky, but the manuscript itself is a copy of an earlier manuscript written in Old English or Anglo-Saxon vernacular. This copy, written on parchment and in rough condition, has survived fire and other usage damage, with some parts completely illegible. In terms of provenance, it was owned by Lawrence Nowell (which is the source of the codex’s name) in the mid-16^th century and later acquired by Sir Robert Cotton, who bound the two codices into a single manuscript, and in the 19^th century was bound in paper frames. It is now owned by the British Library, after Sir Robert Cotton’s grandson donated it to the British nation for public use.

According to Leonard Neidorf (2017), a philological study of Beowulf suggests that while the surviving manuscript was likely written around 1000 CE, the errors the scribes make in the written text suggest that the scribes are recording a language that has since evolved from when the original epic was written, in that their errors fit the profile of writers who are recording the text 300 years after the original poem was written down. Dating is a little tricky, but according to Niedorf (2017, p. 1):

The characteristics of the scribes’ handwriting enable the act of copying to be dated to a relatively narrow period. Scribe A’s vernacular minuscule script was not regularly used before 1001, whereas Scribe B’s square minuscule was not regularly used after 1010. […] The hundreds of transcription errors that pervade the transmitted text indicate, however, that this manuscript is a copy of a copy, written out at a vast remove from the authorial archetype.

It may be difficult to understand why handwriting and typos can be dating clues for pinpointing the time period in which the manuscript was copied and when the story originated, so for context, think of it this way:

As Niedorf explains above, the Beowulf scribe is copying from a much earlier vernacular, much like we might be copying a text today from Shakespeare’s time. Modern readers mostly understand the language and general gist of Shakespeare, but the language has evolved so much that what was once everyday language easily understood and used naturally by people of the day is now far enough removed that modern readers without extensive Tudor-era language experience are going to miss understanding all of the different phrases and spellings that would have been common at the time. A person copying script today from Shakespeare works in the same way scribes copied in medieval times would make similar errors to that of the scribes who copied the earlier version of Beowulf. These errors play out in such a way as to give away the fact that the person copying is not native to the speaking and writing like Shakespeare, despite their best efforts to mimic the period's style. This is the core clue for modern scholars that there is such a gap between the origin and copies because, unlike the other manuscripts being examined, there is only one surviving copy in the Nowell Codex. The script itself allows scholars to date when the copy was written down due to the known transition between different miniscule and majuscule scripts.