The “Speculum Doctrinale,” intended as a practical manual of knowledge, covers the subjects of grammar, logic, rhetoric, including a Latin vocabulary of some six thousand words; discusses the virtues and gives, under the head of “economic art,” directions for building, gardening, and agriculture, while under the head of “mechanical art,” it describes the work of weavers, smiths, armourers, merchants, hunters, sailors, and generals. Then, after prescribing rules for the preservation of health, it proceeds to mathematics, under which it includes music, geometry, astronomy, astrology, and weights and measures. And here it is noteworthy that the author displays an acquaintance with the Arabic numerals. The “Speculum Historiale” begins with the creation of the world and continues a sacred and secular narrative down to the conversion of Constantine to Christianity. The “origines” of Britain are discussed and the story carried on to Mahomet and Charlemagne, after which comes a history of the First Crusade, a dissertation on the Tartars, and, finally, a short narrative of the earlier Crusade of St. Louis. One chapter is devoted to miracles. The history is largely composed of quotations from a variety of available sources, sacred and secular, which include Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic writers--known to the author through popular Latin versions--Eusebius, Seneca, Cicero, Ovid, Julius Cæsar, the Early Fathers of the Church, and the Mediæval writers, Sigebert de Gembloux, a Belgian Chronicler (1030-1112), and William of Malmesbury (1095-1142). The last named, an English monk of the Abbey of Malmesbury, wrote “De Gestibus Regum Anglorum,” a history of the English Kings, and a continuation, entitled “Historia Novella,” bringing the story down to 1142--works which have formed the basis of subsequent histories of England.