When work began on the Index of Middle English Prose in 1977, it was agreed that the first step towards the preparation of a comprehensive index would be a series of detailed descriptions of the Middle English prose in various major repositories. Each of these Handlists is designed as a self-contained volume. Each includes a full listing of all Middle English prose items, and full indexing of the majority. A few general features of the Handlist should be noted:

1. Each Handlist provides, in the order of the library's shelfmarks, a listing of all pieces of Middle English prose in the collections. Certain categories of material are noted, but not indexed. These include letters and all legal or quasi-legal documents – deeds, indentures, and other such documents. The existence of such documents is, however, noted as they occur.

2. Macaronic materials appear in an Appendix and are recorded only by opening lines.

3. Each item in the manuscript is identified by an arabic numeral placed within square brackets at the head of the entry. Each manuscript has an independent sequence of numbers. The identifying number is followed by opening and closing lines of the text, located by the folios on which they occur. In citing folios, numerals without further indication denote rectos; a and b thus indicate the first and second columns of rectos (va and vb for the same columns on versos). Normally at least fifty words at the beginning of the text appear and at least twenty at the end. Acephalous and atelous texts are treated as normal texts except that they are preceded and/or followed by three dots (…) to indicate incompleteness.