PERMANENT SOURCE RECORD
ALL SOURCES ↗BIBLIOGRAPHIC IDENTITYelectronic-beowulf-152r
SOURCE
RECORD.
One work. Every claim that depends on it. No citation without a consequence you can inspect.
5 PUBLIC LINKS INTO THE GRAPH.
This count excludes duplicate dossier-path citations. Open the claims below to see exactly how the source is used.
digitized primary sourceelectronic-beowulf-152r
Cotton MS Vitellius A XV, folio 152r — Electronic Beowulf facsimile
- AUTHOR / EDITOR
- British Library · Kevin Kiernan, editor
- YEAR
- 2026
- PUBLISHER
- British Library · University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences
- DOI
- Not recorded
- SOURCE TYPE
- digitized primary source
- EXTERNAL RECORD
- OPEN ORIGINAL ↗
011
CONTRARIAN TRUTH CLAIMS
RANKED REVEALS THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
RANK 56GRADE Asupports
The Old English friend was a loving-agent noun—but not merely a modern intimate.
OED and Bosworth–Toller preserve the morphology behind frēond: an inherited nd-stem formation tied to the verb meaning free or love. The same sources then refuse a slogan-sized definition. Old English uses cover close companion, ally or non-enemy, relation, friend of God, friend versus foe, and friends acting as arbitrators. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 152r visibly preserves freondum in a hall filled with favored people at Beowulf 1018. The unveiling is not that friend secretly means love in every sentence; it is that a loving-agent fossil became a socially versatile noun before modern English existed.
*prī-
*prī- → *frī- → *frijōnd- → frēond
Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 152rProvides the directly inspected freondum manuscript witness.
frēond dossier ↗truth record ↗89UNVEILING
022
SCHOLARLY DISAGREEMENT
DISPUTE POSITIONS THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
opensupportsprobable
Does freondum at Beowulf 1018 identify every person as a modern intimate friend?
No. The local text says Heorot was filled with freondum, but the manuscript alone does not recover each referent’s exact social relationship or a modern intimacy category.
Folio 152r; local Heorot contextEstablishes the visible form and neighboring words only.
resolvedsupportsestablished
Does folio 152r prove the earliest use of frēond?
No. The directly inspected object proves one inflected form in one manuscript witness. It is not a birth certificate for the lexeme or the poem.
Folio 152r; visible freondum afylled sequenceProvides the directly inspected manuscript pixels.
030
CANONICAL RELATIONSHIP CLAIMS
EDGES THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
No canonical ancestry edge currently cites this source.
041
LEXICAL ATTESTATIONS
WITNESSES REPORTED BY THIS SOURCE
frēondINSPECTED
frēond
Beowulf manuscript, Heorot filled with friends
OPEN WITNESS 531 ↗050
COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE
COGNATES, DESCENDANTS, AND RELATIVES
No comparative-relative record currently cites this source.
061
GEOGRAPHIC AND TEMPORAL CLAIMS
JOURNEY STAGES THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
stage 5supports
England, copying place unresolved
Provides the directly inspected primary-object image.
Folio 152r; visible freondum afylled sequence · broad070
NON-GENEALOGICAL CONNECTIONS
HISTORICAL CONTEXT, KEPT SEPARATE
No non-genealogical context link currently cites this source.
081
WORD-FAMILY REUSE