This second MS is popularly known as the Nowellcodex, after Laurence Nowell, whose name is inscribed on its first page; he was apparently its owner in the mid-16th century.
The Nowellcodex is generally dated around the turn of the first millennium; it has usually been assigned to the late 10th century, though some recent editions have preferred the very early 11th century instead.
The second codex begins with three prose works: a life of Saint Christopher, Marvels of the East (a description of various far-off lands and their fantastic inhabitants), and a translation of a letter of Alexander to Aristotle.
The codex was an improvement upon the scroll, which it gradually replaced, first in the West, and much later in Asia.
From the fourth century, when the codex gained wide acceptance, to the Carolingian Renaissance in the eighth century, many works that were not converted from scroll to codex were lost to posterity.
The codex also made it easier to organize documents in a library because it had a stable spine on which the title of the book could be written.
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