The three preserved manuscripts—the Auchinleck MS., London, British Library, Harley 3810/I, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 61–have striking differences present throughout the texts. The three manuscripts are very similar in the content of the story; however, there exists a small discrepancy between the Auchinleck and Ashmole manuscripts: Sir Orfeo's wife is called Meroudys in the Ashmole manuscript and is called Heurodus in the Auchinleck manuscript. While their content is similar, each manuscript omits certain lines and adds lines in order to portray the story more accurately, which may be a result of the time period.
The Auchinleck manuscript was originally written on 332 vellum leaves. Most of this manuscript has been mutilated, and a large number of leaves have been cut away. Eight of these missing leaves have been recovered, and the present contents of the volume originally consisted of 52 gatherings. This manuscript is the closest to the presumed original version and is often known as the "base" text of 604 lines.
The Harley 3180 manuscript was composed of 34 paper folios and contained only six works: Sir Orfeo and moral and religious pieces being two of them. The verse on the last folio is written in sixteenth-century hand with an inscription being: Hic liber olim fuit liber Wil’mi Shawcler’ et Cur de Badesly Clinton: Eccl’a. The Harleian Collection version of Sir Orfeo has only been printed once. It contains only 509 lines, about 100 shorter than the Auchinleck version. Using that as the base text this Harleian version omits lines 49–50, 166–7, 206–7, 241–2, 247–50, 293–6, 391–404, 411–12, 439–42, 445–6, 458, 481–2, 485–6, 501–8, 521–2, 527–8, 539–40, 545–52, 555–6, 559–62, 565–82, 585–6, 589–94, 597–602. Passages are also added to this manuscript: two lines after line 280, two lines after line 468, two lines after 518 and four lines added at the end.
The last manuscript is Ashmole 61, which is a tall narrow folio containing 162 paper folios. This manuscript contained 41 articles of romance, saints' lives, and various moral and religious pieces. Sir Orfeo was the 39th article in this manuscript. Using Auchnileck as the base text, Ashmole omits lines 19–22, 39–46, 59–60, 67–68, 92–98, 123–4, 177–8, 299–302, 367–79, 394, 397–400, 402–4, 409–10, 481–2, 591–2. Passages are also added: six lines in the beginning, two after line 104, two after line 120, one before and after line 132, nine after line 134, one after line 159, two after line 180, two after line 190, two after line 270, two after line 274, one after line 356, three after line 296, two after line 416, two after line 468, two after line 476, one before and after line 550, two after line 558, and six at the end.[8]
