Although there have been a number of studies of Middle English romance in the sixteenth century from the point of view of printing history or of descriptive bibliography, very little attention has been paid to the actual texts in relationship to earlier manuscript traditions or to one another. In this chapter I offer a textual characterization of the post-medieval versions of the five romances in Cambridge University Library, MS Ff.2.38 (Sir Eglamour of Artois, Syr Tryamowre, Sir Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick and Sir Degaré) that were printed in the early Tudor period. My own work on Bevis has shown that textual relationships between manuscripts and prints of the romance are far from straightforward, with apparently ‘original’ features occurring uniquely in late printings, and that the text was substantially modified at or near the point of transition from manuscript to print. I shall attempt here to establish whether any common patterns of transmission and adaptation can be identified among the five romances under consideration and thereby to throw some light on the practices of sixteenth-century printers in the selection and treatment of Middle English romance texts.

CUL MS Ff.2.38, generally thought to have been produced in the late fifteenth or the early sixteenth century, is not the direct source of any of the printed texts discussed here, but it is significant in indicating the continued manuscript circulation of the romances that it contains in the early years of the printing era. This in turn suggests a degree of popularity that might otherwise be obscured by the vagaries of manuscript survival. (Tryamowre, for instance, survives in only one other (fragmentary) manuscript antedating the advent of print.) It is a reasonable assumption, therefore, that printed romance was considered ‘commercially viable because the texts had already been disseminated widely in manuscript, and thus the printer could be assured that there was a demand to which he could safely respond’.

The giants among the sixteenth-century printers of romance were Wynkyn de Worde, who took over Caxton's business in 1492 and died in 1534/5, and William Copland, who between 1553 and the mid-1560s produced twentytwo surviving editions of medieval romances. Each of them produced at least one edition of Eglamour, Degaré, Guy and Bevis; de Worde also printed Tryamowre and Torrent.