Scope and content
Contents cover a variety of practical, religious, and moralistic subjects of the period, as well as ancient proverbial wisdom, mostly copied or adapted from printed sources. Printed sources include: the Geneva Bible, almanacs, chronicles, husbandry manuals, commonplace books, pattern books, sets of prints imported from Antwerp, and English broadside ballads and woodcuts (for a full list of sources see Trevelyon's sources in facsimile introduction, p. 16-21).
The first part of the manuscript consists of historical and practical information; a time line; an illustrated calendar; moralizing proverbs; a series of computational tables and astronomical diagrams; lists of families linked to William the Conqueror; distances between London and cities around the world; a rule for determining the dates of legal terms; a list of fairs; geographical accounts of Britain, Wales and Cornwall; descriptions of the Cambridge and Oxford colleges; a list of the shires, cities, and boroughs of England; a list of the wards and parish churches of London and environs; and a table providing distances between London and other notable towns in England.
The second part of the manuscript consists of a series of biblical and monarchical chronologies, beginning with the account in Genesis of the creation of the world and the fall of man, followed by the generations of Adam, the sons of Noah, the kings of Israel, the genealogies of Mary and Joseph, the twelve tribes of Israel, the early rulers of Britain, the kings and queens of England, and the kings and queens of Scotland.
The third part of the manuscript contains edifying and cautionary verses, with illustrations, on the Twelve Degrees of the World, the Five Alls, the Ten Commandments, the Nine Worthies, the Nine Muses, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Seven Virtues, the Seven Liberal Sciences, and the Twelve Apostles; as well as figures important to Protestant history, the six Gunpowder Plot traitors; Pagan, Jewish and Christian heroes; additional parables, proverbs, and lists of virtues and vices accompanied by scriptural and secular verses.
The fourth part of the manuscript is devoted to patterns, most without text, of caps, mazes, marquetry, knotwork, strapwork lettering, floral and abstract borders and motifs, repeating patterns, and alphabets suitable for embroidery and other applied arts, plasterwork, woodwork, painting and garden design.
The fifth and final part of the manuscript is a list of sheriffs and mayors of London from 1190 to 1601.
