The manuscript was copied, probably shortly before 1450, by someone who signed himself Salthows on the bottom portion of the final page. This scribe has been shown to be the Norwich monk Richard Salthouse.[20] The manuscript contains annotations by four hands. The first page of the manuscript contains the rubric "Liber Montis Gracie. This boke is of Mountegrace," making certain that some of the annotations are the work of monks associated with the important Carthusian priory of Mount Grace in Yorkshire. Although the four readers largely concerned themselves with correcting mistakes or emending the manuscript for clarity, there are also remarks about the Book's substance and some images which reflect Kempe's themes and images.[21] A recipe, added to the final folio of the manuscript by a late 14th- or early 15th-century reader of the Book, possibly at the cathedral priory in Norwich, provides more evidence of its readership and has been determined to be for medicinal sweets, or digestives, called 'dragges'.[22]
Kempe's book was essentially lost for centuries, being known only from excerpts published by Wynkyn de Worde in around 1501, and by Henry Pepwell in 1521. However, in 1934 a manuscript (now British Library Add MS 61823, the only surviving manuscript of Kempe's Book) was found in the private library of the Butler-Bowdon family, and then consulted by Hope Emily Allen.[12] It has since been reprinted and translated in numerous editions.
