Introduction.

MS. Douce 104 is dated by the scribe, who began 25 September 1427 and appears to have finished that same year; the dialect of both the text and the numerous annotations is Hiberno-English; the MS. was most probably produced in Ireland and brought to England on the return of Sir James Ley (1608), whose family arms are on the binding. The text is Anglicana formata; the scribe is probably responsible for the rubrication, paraphs and markers, but was probably not the annotator, corrector, or illustrator. Outline sketches for the pictures were apparently done before the text was written, and finished subsequent to the text, with annotations added after the illustrations. Though unique in its illustrations, MS. Douce 104 is “broadly representative of the manuscripts of the longer versions of the poem in being a fairly plain, workaday volume, regularly and clearly written, economically though not cheaply produced.”