The two artists of the Nowell Codex Wonders of the East

The version of Wonders of the East found alongside Beowulf in the Nowell Codex has long been disparaged for the low quality of its images. This article demonstrates that there were in fact at least two artists involved in the making of the images, one with considerably more skill than the other. Having established this principle of team work in the text and manuscript, a full reassessment of the process of producing the text, and the intentions behind it, is necessary. In the process, the article shows that - while it is far from first-rate work - there are a number of sophisticated ideas contained in the image scheme, that at least two exemplars were used, and that there is an element of experimentation and novelty in this production.