His chief, but by no means only source was the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, whom he cites as "Januence".
The first of the legends, Vita S[an]c[t]ae Margaretae, virginis et martyris (Life of St Margaret, Virgin and Martyr), was written for a friend, Thomas Burgh, a Cambridge monk.
"[2] The poems were edited in 1835 for the Roxburghe Club with the title Lyvys of Seyntys..., and by Dr Carl Horstmann as Osbern Bokenams Legenden (Heilbronn, 1883), in Eugen Kölbing's Altengl.
vi, p. 1600), between a "Secular asking and a Frere answerynge at the grave of Dame Johan of Acres [who] shewith the lyneal descent of the lordis of the honore of Clare fro... MCCXLVIII to... MCCCLVI".
[2] In 2004 a manuscript copy of Bokenam's version of Legenda Aurea was found in the library of Abbotsford House, Scotland.