The Book is The Layfolks' Catechism, a handbook on the principal tenets of the Christian religion for ordinary people. It goes systematically through the articles of belief, the major prayers, the Seven Sacraments, principles of Christian conduct, and so forth.

This is a practical work, not a showpiece, though its possession would still presumably reflect a degree of prestige on the owner. It is neat and fairly well written, though not spectacular: the folio is frame-ruled, and the text sits inside the block in a reasonably tidy way.

This page starts at the end of a description of the Seven Sacraments. It then goes on to list the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy (see Matthew 25:35-37), acts of practical charity enjoined on every Christian person with sufficient means to cary them out. It then proceeds to the Seven Spiritual Works of Mercy, which were especially developed for religious who had no personal possessions to give away. Listing by numbers is clearly very important as a memory device, and the layout reflects this (see below).

It is written in verse. This is also to make it easier to remember: the reader would probably end up knowing it off by heart, whether intentionally or unintentionally. This would come in useful when they were preparing themselves for confession. The lines are left-justified, but obviously cannot alway be right-justified.

The lines are introduced by an initial letter.
		Sometimes these have separate forms from the 'lower-case' letters,
		sometimes they are just the same but slightly larger.
	At the top of the page the opening letter is flourished into the upper margin. This seems to be purely positional: it occurs in the middle of a sentence.

The layout also helps the owner to find his or her way about the text.

Numbers.
	Different items are carefully numbered. This comes from the list of the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy. Roman numerals are of course used. Notice that 4 is iiij, not iv. Similarly, 9 would be viiij, not ix.
	Here a new section is marked by its number (iiij), and a 'new paragraph' sign, called a paraph. You will recognise this, or its descendant, if you use the Show Formatting tool in Microsoft Word:		¶
Marginalia
	Other marginalia in the left margin include the abbreviation for the word versus ('verse'), which points you to a mnemonic in Latin which sums up the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy in one easy line.
		And this in the right margin is a boxed annotation showing where a new topic ('The Seven Spiritual Works') begins.
		While this in the right margin above points to the list of the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy.
		Above them are boxes referring to the sacraments being discussed in the text.
It is interesting that though the text is in English, the rubrics (we continue to call them so, even though they are not in red) are in Latin. This may be because of the perceived status of the rubric - compare the character names in the play manuscript last week. In any case it suggests that the reader had sufficient Latin to be able to understand what they referred to.

Thus though at first this may seem a very simple, almost casual piece of writing, it is in fact admirably fitted for its purpose.

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© MEG TWYCROSS 2000