SOURCE: Introduction to Sir Orfeo, Oxford University Press, 1954, pp. ixxlviii.

In the following excerpt, Bliss describes the three extant manuscripts of Sir Orfeo and briefly analyzes its literary qualities.

Manuscripts

1. Sir Orfeo is extant in three manuscripts, the Auchinleck MS. (Advocates’ 19. 2. 1), here designated A, MS. Harley 3810, here designated H, and MS. Ashmole 61 (Bodleian 6922*), here designated B.

The Auchinleck Ms.

2. The Auchinleck MS.¹ is a stout folio volume containing 332 vellum leaves measuring 19 × 25 cm.; they must once have been larger, since in some places the binder's knife has cropped off marginal annotations. The manuscript has been much mutilated; most of the rather crude illuminations have been excised, and a large number of leaves have been completely cut away. The foliation includes two leaves of which only a narrow strip remains, so that the last leaf is numbered 334. Eight of the missing leaves have been recovered.² The present contents of the...