Exeter Scribes in Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii. 2. 11 + Exeter Book Folios 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.