Using the Book: Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii. 1. 33

This essay’s focus is the annotations and marginalia added to three items in Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii. 1 33, which provide traces of reading, response, and reuse. The layering of annotations in this manuscript raises important questions about the boundaries between, and relative status of, the different languages available for writing in England in the second half of the twelfth century. It highlights the centrality of Old English to continuing traditions of writing, reading, and preaching, and its place in developing scholarly traditions.