The contents of the manuscript are as follows:

(i) Calendar in black, blue and red (folio 3). Entries in red include Saints Edward (18 March) and Dunstan (19 May), `Depositio sancti Augustini` (26 May), ordination of St Gregory (3 September) and translations of Saints Hugh (6 October) and Edward (13 October).

(ii) Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary for Advent (folio 9) and from Christmas to the Purification (folio 11 verso).

(iii) Confession, attributed in the rubric to St John Chrysostom (folio 14). Incipit `Confiteor deo celi et beate Marie sanctis apostolis tuis.` The confession, which is lengthy, is in the feminine form.

(iv) Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary (folio 16). From Lauds onwards, each office is followed by the corresponding office from the Hours of the Cross.

(v) Penitential Psalms (folio 34).

(vi) Litany and prayers (folio 37). The Litany includes Saints Swithun, Birinus and Edith. An entry has been added in a contemporary hand, ` ut viam famuli tui thome disponas` (folio 38 verso), probably for Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury.

(vii) Litany of the Virgin and prayers (folio 41). The rubric (in French) attributes the Litany to St Anselm. The prayers include one to a guardian angel and one containing the fourteen articles of faith.

(viii) Office of the Dead (folio 48).

(ix) Psalter of St Jerome (folio 60 verso).

(x) Prayers to be said during Mass (folio 65). The rubrics are in French and the prayers in the feminine form. They include prayers for `me famulam tuam Alianoram` (folio 66), `anime patris mei Hunfridi` (folio 67 verso) and for the Pope (probably Boniface but the name has been erased), `antistite nostro Roberto [probably Robert Braybrooke, Bishop of London] et rege nostro Ricardo` (folio 66 verso).

(xi) Psalter, canticles, Athanasian creed and prayers (folio 69). Antiphons have been added in the margins and a later hand has numbered the psalms in sets of ten. A leaf containing the end of psalm 150, the first two canticles and the beginning of `Exultavit cor meum` is missing. There are two prayers between psalms 100 and 101 (folio 110 verso); others which follow the canticles are in the feminine form.

Prayers and other material were added by another hand in the first quarter of the 15th century (folios 1-2, 144-145). They include a list of the ferial divisions of the Psalter, an explanation in English of the Gradual Psalms as fifteen virtues (incipit `The temple that Salamon the Kyng of Israel maade by the comaundement of god`), and suffrages. Other hands have written lists of feasts, saints, events in the life of Christ, initials and the date of the battle of Agincourt (folios 147-148).

Sections (i)-(xi) are written by a single scribe except for one prayer (folio 43 verso). Later hands have added antiphons (folio 21 verso) and other prayers (folios 39 verso, 46 verso). 23 historiated and five large decorated initials, all with full foliate borders. The historiated initials depict prophets, the Annunciation, Nativity, Virgin and Child, scenes from the Passion, a funeral, St Jerome, scenes from the life of King David, and the Trinity. Armorial bearings on folios 14, 16, 34, 65 and 69 have not been completed, and blanks are left for initials in section (vii) and on folios 1-2, 144-145. For a full description of the illumination, see ‘Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385’.

An erased inscription (folio 148 verso) has been read as ` Cest livre feust a Alianore de bohun duchesse de Gloucestre lequel ele fist escrire` (‘Burlington Fine Arts Club. Exhibition of illuminated manuscripts’, number 150), referring to Eleanor de Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester (died 1399). This provenance is confirmed by the name Alienora in several prayers (folios 66-67, 138 verso) and that of her father, Humphrey, Earl of Hereford (folio 67 verso). The book is one of a group of manuscripts made for the Bohun family (for which see ‘Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385’, ii, pages 34-36 and ‘The Bohun Manuscripts’ - the latter does not discuss this manuscript). It is probably the psalter left by Eleanor to her daughter Joan (for Eleanor`s will see ‘Testamenta vetusta’, i, pages 146-149), but Joan died in 1400 and it may have passed into the possession of her sister Anne, Countess of Stafford, who married secondly Sir William Bourchier. `Manuale Eliz. Bourchier` occurs in a 17th-century hand (folio 1). There are a number of obits and other notes added to the calendar and folio 148 verso, some of which refer to members of the Tyrrell family of Gipping, 1445-1509 (published in the ‘Newsletter of the Tyrrell Family History Society’, viii, pages 71-73). Cipher of Sir James Balfour of Denmilne (folio 145 verso).