Exeter Scribes in Cambridge University Library Ii.2.11 + Exeter Book fols 0, 1–7

During Leofric’s episcopacy, there was an organized programme of manuscript copying in Exeter, for which scribes were trained to write in a similar style. The main scribe of a gospel-book, Cambridge University Library, MS Ii. 2. 11 + Exeter Book folios 0, 1–7, seems to have been a leading figure amongst these scribes. When producing another manuscript, for example, he seems to have written exemplary script for his colleague. This essay also illustrates that a diverse English scribal system was still alive after Leofric in twelfth-century Exeter. The gospel-book was designed to function as a record book. Documents added to the beginning and the end of the gospel-book display significant variety in the characteristics of the hands. One of the hands suggests possible scribal connections between Worcester and Exeter.