The Corpus manuscript[[2]] is a small volume (about 8 in. × 4½ in.), bound in vellum, written on parchment in a hand of about 1300 A.D., with several final long ſ's, and consisting of eighty-one leaves. Genesis ends on fol. 49b; Exodus has the last two lines at the top of fol. 81a.
The writing is clear and regular; the letters are large, but the words are often very close together. Every initial letter has a little dab of red on it, and they are mostly capitals, except the b, the f, the ð, and sometimes other letters. Very rarely, however, B, F, and Ð are found as initial letters.
The illuminated letters are simply large vermilion letters without ornament, and are of an earlier form than the writing of the rest of the manuscript. Every line ends with a full stop (or metrical point), except, very rarely, when omitted by accident. Whenever this stop occurs in the middle of a line it has been marked thus (.) in the text.
DESCRIPTION OF THE POEM.
Our author, of whom, unfortunately, we know nothing, introduces his subject to his readers by telling them that they ought to love a rhyming story which teaches the "layman" (though he be learned in no books) how to love and serve God, and to live peaceably and amicably with his fellow Christians. His poem, or "song," as he calls it, is, he says, turned out of Latin into English speech; and as birds are joyful to see the dawning, so ought Christians to rejoice to hear the "true tale" of man's fall and subsequent redemption related in the vulgar tongue ("land's speech"), and in easy language ("small words").
So eschewing a "high style" and all profane subjects, he declares that he will undertake to sing no other song, although his present task should prove unsuccessful.[[3]] Our poet next invokes the aid of the Deity for his song in the following terms:—
"Fader god of alle ðhinge,
Almigtin louerd, hegeſt kinge,
ðu giue me ſeli timinge
To thaunen ðis werdes biginninge,