The Rhymed Chronicle was previously believed to have been a Tischbuch (a document read to the members of the order during mealtimes).

[2][page needed] However, it has more recently been suggested that whilst the chronicle would have indeed been read aloud to an audience, this would not have occurred at mealtimes.

[3] Murray suggests that this constraint may have encouraged the author to rely on simplistic language and repetitive structures in order to allow an audience to better understand the history being told in a dialect with which they were not familiar.

[3] Murray argues it is likely the document was intended to appeal to the secular crusaders who volunteered for service with the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and Teutonic Order, based on the general brevity of religious themes within the chronicle, and the focus on military expeditions and the order's martial success.

It is this chronicle that narrates how Estonians supposedly slaughtered their own nobility and called the Livonian Order to Estonia, which, in turn, butchered them, in 1343.