Discussion of ‘the Gawain-poet’ must begin, not with a man, but with a book; for everything that is known about this writer (or writers) derives from a single manuscript volume, now in the British Library, London. It is a small book, less than five inches by seven, consisting of ninety leaves of parchment. It contains four poems, copied out by someone (not the poet) around the year 1400. This copyist writes a rather unusual small, sharp hand; and the dialect forms of his English locate his origins somewhere near the borders of Cheshire and Staffordshire, in the north-west of the English Midlands. Medieval manuscripts do not have title-pages, and this scribe provides no headings or paratext of any sort – just four plain poems. The titles of these have therefore been given by modern editors: Pearl is first, followed by Cleanness (sometimes called Purity), Patience, and finally Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Originally the four texts were distinguished from each other simply by leaving blank parchment between; but an illustrator subsequently took advantage of these blanks, and of extra leaves at the beginning and end, to add twelve rather clumsy pictures illustrating the poems, something quite uncommon in the English manuscripts of the time. Subjects include the dreamer's encounter with the maiden in Pearl, Noah's Ark (Cleanness), Jonah being thrown into the sea (Patience), and the Green Knight at Arthur's court.

Modern knowledge of medieval English literature is very patchy and imperfect, depending as it does upon the chances of survival of such copies as were made at the time. However, by the end of the fourteenth century increased demand for vernacular books was being met by increased production of copies, and English writings began to enjoy much improved chances of survival. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Gower's Confessio Amantis, and Langland's Piers Plowman were all preserved in many copies, and so became available to early printers. Hence they could enter the general canon of English writings, where they have remained continuously, though not without ups and downs, from Tudor times to the present day. By contrast, the four anonymous poems under consideration here suffered a long period of obscurity and neglect.