Laurence Nowell (abt. 1530 - abt. 1571)

Born about 1530 in Lancashire, England

Ancestors

Biography

Laurence Nowell is Notable.

This profile is part of the Nowell Name Study.

Laurence was born about 1530. He was the son of Alexander Nowell of Read, Lancashire, and Grace Catterall.

He studied at Christ Church, Oxford, where he was awarded a MA degree in 1552. He then travelled extensively, first in Europe and subsequently, with the antiquarian William Lambarde, in England and Ireland. He gained the patronage of William Cecil and by 1563 he was living in Cecil's house and tutoring his ward Edward de Vere. He compiled for Cecil a map of the East coast of Ireland and a small map of England which Cecil is said to always have carried with him. In the bottom left corner of the map Laurence penned a self-portrait of himself semi-reclining mournfully with an upturned empty purse - a clear hint to his desire that Cecil be more generous to him.

Laurence Nowell, along with his friend William Lambarde, is best known as an antiquarian with a special interest in Anglo-Saxon times. He started, but never finished, an atlas of Anglo-Saxon England. He encouraged Lambarde to publish a collection of Anglo-Saxon laws, to which he himself made a substantial contribution, including probably the map of Anglo-Saxon England that appears in the book. He was an avid collector and transcriber of Anglo-Saxon documents and manuscripts, one of which was the only surviving copy of the epic poem Beowulf. He annotated the Exeter Book, one of the major collections of Anglo-Saxon literature. He produced the first dictionary of Old English, the Vocabularium Saxonicum.

In 1568, probably giving up hope that Cecil's patronage would lead to a lucrative position, he went to pursue his studies and researches in mainland Europe. He passed away between 1570 and 1572. His manuscript collection was inherited by William Lambarde, and subsequently some of the more important Old English manuscripts he acquired, including Beowulf, became part of the Cotton Collection, now in the British Library, where they are known as the Nowell Codex.^[1]

Research Notes

Until fairly recently, it was generally believed that Laurence Nowell was the same person as Laurence Nowell, Dean of Lichfield, the brother of Alexander Nowell, Dean of St Paul's. An article published in 1974 by Retha Warnicke has given conclusive evidence that they were different people, and cousins with the same paternal grandfather, Roger Nowell of Arkesay.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia: Nowell Codex
2. ↑ Note on a Court of Requests case of 1571, Retha Warnicke, English Language Notes 11: 250–56, 1974

• Wikipedia: Laurence Nowell
• Note on a Court of Requests case of 1571, Retha Warnicke, English Language Notes, 11: 250–56, 1974
• https://sixteenthcenturyscholars.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/laurence-nowell/
• Laurence Nowell and Beowulf, article at https://politicworm.com/oxford/oxfords-education/sir-thomas-who/beowulf-and-laurence-nowell/
• Laurence Nowell, by Rebecca Brackmann, http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/reference/essays/laurence-nowell/
• https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/beowulf
• The Laurence Nowell Manuscripts in the British Library, Retha M Warnicke, Electronic British Library Journal, 1979, pp.201-2 - https://www.bl.uk/eblj/1979articles/pdf/article20.pdf