Abstract :
London, British Library, Harley 3271 is a composite manuscript designed for use in
teaching Latin, and contains Ælfric’s Grammar beside other pedagogical works. The
book also contains a large number of miscellaneous items, and fourteen scribal hands.
Many of the texts point to the usual interests of the Anglo-Saxon scholar in computus
and prognostics, while others suggest an interest in the tradition of numerical notes.
The items written by Scribe C, the only one whose stints are spread throughout the
blank space of the composite volume, point to a combined interest in education,
numbers and the Jewish people.
The identifi cation of criteria by which surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts
might be defi ned as schoolbooks has proven diffi cult for modern scholars, a
problem related to the often miscellaneous character of the collections whose
contents include established curriculum texts. London, British Library, Harley
3271 is one of the few books surviving from Anglo-Saxon England generally
agreed to have been created for educational use.1 The manuscript is best
known for its copy of Ælfric’s Grammar, though since the time of William
Lambarde its more miscellaneous items, in the form of notes, prognostics and
computus material, have drawn some attention.2 A range of evidence points
