Though the real name of "The Pearl Poet" (or poets) is unknown, some inferences about them can be drawn from an informed reading of their works. The original manuscript is known in academic circles as Cotton Nero A.x, following a naming system used by one of its owners, Robert Cotton, a collector of medieval English texts.[2] Before the manuscript came into Cotton's possession, it was in the library of Henry Savile of Bank in Yorkshire.[3] Little is known about its previous ownership, and until 1824, when the manuscript was introduced to the academic community in a second edition of Thomas Warton's History edited by Richard Price, it was almost entirely unknown.[4][5] Now held in the British Library, it has been dated to the late 14th century, so the poet was a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales; however, it is highly unlikely that the two ever met.[6] The three other works found in the same manuscript as Pearl (commonly known as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Cleanness or Purity) are often considered to be written by the same author. However, the manuscript containing these poems was transcribed by a copyist and not by the original poet. Although nothing explicitly suggests that all four poems are by the same poet, comparative analysis of dialect, verse form, and diction have pointed towards common authorship.[7]
What is known today about the poet is general. As J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, after reviewing the text's allusions, style, and themes, concluded in 1925:
He was a man of serious and devout mind, though not without humour; he had an interest in theology, and some knowledge of it, though an amateur knowledge perhaps, rather than a professional; he had Latin and French and was well enough read in French books, both romantic and instructive; but his home was in the West Midlands of England; so much his language shows, and his metre, and his scenery.[8]
The poet is understood to have lived in the North Shropshire/Cheshire/Staffordshire dialect region.
The Pearl Poet and is thought to have written the poem St. Erkenwald, which some scholars argue bears stylistic similarities to Gawain. St. Erkenwald.
The most commonly suggested candidate for authorship is John Massey of Cotton, Cheshire.[9] However, has been dated by some scholars to a time outside the Gawain poet's era.
Thus, ascribing authorship to John Massey is still controversial and a number critics are not confident to go beyond saying the Gawain poet cannot yet be confidently identified beyond the region he came from.[7]
St Erkenwald, Saxon Prince, bishop and saint known as the "Light of London": inspiration for a potentially allied poem by the same poet
