Manuscript

London, British Library, MS Additional 27879 (Percy Folio)

Date of origin	c.1650
Place of origin	Lancashire
Material	Paper
Dimensions	Width: 390mm \| Height: 140mm
Notes	Paginated. The seventeenth-century miscellany known as the Percy Folio, copied by a single scribe with an antiquarian impulse and an interest in popular literature, contains almost two hundred texts of various genres. Ballads and romances, which can be traced, however imperfectly, to medieval sources, have been of especial interest to medievalists. It is those texts which are listed here, and have been included in the database.

Contents

Folio	Content item	IMEV	Details
pp. 24-31	King Arthur and King Cornwall	638	303 lines. Unique copy; sometimes called a 'romance ballad' or simply a 'ballad'. Heavily mutilated; about half the text survives in a series of fragments.
pp. 38-46	Turke and Sir Gawain	1886	Unique copy; no identifiable medieval antecedent but shares striking points of similarity with both 'Carle of Carlisle' and 'Greene Knight' and their antecedents. Incomplete, with only 337 lines, about half of the original, remaining.
pp. 46-52	Marriage of Sir Gawain	1819	Unique copy; sometimes identified as a ballad (and evidently related to 'Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle'). Incomplete, with 217 lines, about half of the original, remaining.
pp. 60-66	Sir Landevale	689	Sometimes also known as 'Sir Lambewell'. 632 lines.
pp. 124-145	Eger and Grime	1624	Unique manuscript copy. 1474 lines.
pp. 145-178	Arthour and Merline	1162	2378 lines, corresponding to lines 1-2160 of Auchinleck.
pp. 203-10	Greene Knight	1908	Unique copy; related to, but markedly different from, 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'. 528 lines.
pp. 210–32	Sir Tryamour	1177	1593 lines; likely copied from an early modern print version of the romance.
pp. 296–313	Sir Eglamour of Artois	1725	1291 lines; likely copied from an early modern print version of the romance.
pp. 317-346	Libeaus Desconus	1690	2241 lines.
pp. 349-357	Guy and Colbrond		Unique copy. 636 lines.
pp. 372-381	Sir Degare	1895	900 lines.
pp. 444-446	Squire of Low Degree (Undo Your Door)	1644	At 174 lines, the Percy Folio 'The Squier' is a dramatically abridged, ballad-version of the romance preserved in Early Modern prints.
pp. 448-55	Carle of Carlisle	1888	Unique copy. 500 lines. Shares a common origin with 'Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle'.