Cleanness

Cleanness (Middle English: Clannesse) is a Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century. Its unknown author, designated the Pearl poet or Gawain poet, also appears, on the basis of dialect and stylistic evidence, to be the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Patience, and may have composed St. Erkenwald.

The poem is found solely in the Pearl manuscript, Cotton Nero A x. That manuscript also contains Pearl, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. None of the poems has a title or divisions of chapters, but the breaks are marked by large initial letters of blue, and there are twelve illustrations (or illuminations) contained within the manuscript, depicting scenes from the four poems. Each of these poems is entirely unique to this one manuscript. Cleanness (which is an editorial title) is also known by the editorial title Purity.

The manuscript, Cotton Nero A.x is in the British Museum. The first published edition was in Early English Alliterative Poems in the West Midland Dialect of the fourteenth century, printed by the Early English Text Society.