The author is generally supposed to have come from the former village of Oxnead,[a] which lies about ten miles from the abbey.
The chronicler mentions the arrival of Hengist and Horsa but really begins the narration at the reign of Alfred the Great.
Highlights of the chronicle also include the reign of Edgar, the treatment of Jews in England at the time of the Norman Conquest, the Purgatory of St. Patrick, the reign of Henry III and the arrival of the elephant of Henry III in England in 1255.
As is usual in medieval chronicles, the accounts of events near the author's own period are richer in detail and greater in length.
The chronicle ends suddenly in the middle of a sentence about Robert of Winchelsey; the rest of that sheet is blank.