Abstract
abstract: British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x contains the unique copies of four important alliterative Middle English poems including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight —the chief source of the book's fame and focus of scholarly attention over the last century. At one point, this composite codex also contained two Latin manuscripts, compiled with the Middle English poems by early modern antiquarian collector Sir Robert Cotton. More than three centuries after Cotton assembled the volume, however, the British Museum extracted the Latin material and bound it separately from Gawain and the other English poems. This essay discusses the unique form of codicological miscellaneity that characterizes composite manuscripts like Nero A.x. The story of its early modern assembly and modern disaggregation illustrates how material histories can determine how we access and interpret medieval texts today.
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