For the essays in this two-volume 1861 work, Wright draws on sources ranging from medieval charters to modern linguistic studies.

Volume 1: 1. On the remains of a primitive people in the south-east corner of Yorkshire; 2. On some ancient barrows, or tumuli, opened in East Yorkshire; 3. On some curious forms of sepulchral interment found in East Yorkshire; 4. Treago, and the large tumulus at St Weonard's; 5. On the ethnology of South Britain at the period of the extinction of the Roman government in the island; 6. On the origin of the Welsh; 7. On Anglo-Saxon antiquities, with a particular reference to the Faussett Collection; 8. On the true character of the biographer Asser; 9. Anglo-Saxon architecture, illustrated from illuminated manuscripts; 10. On the literary history of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Britons, and of the Romantic Cycle of King Arthur; 11. On saints' lives and miracles; 12. On antiquarian excavations and researches in the middle ages. Volume 2: 13. On the ancient map of the world preserved in Hereford Cathedral, as illustrative of the history of geography in the middle ages; 14. On the history of the English language; 15. On the abacus, or mediaeval system of arithmetic; 16. On the antiquity of dates expressed in Arabic numerals; 17. Remarks on an ivory casket of the beginning of the fourteenth century; 18. On the carvings of the stalls in cathedral and collegiate churches; 19. Illustrations of some questions relating to architectural antiquities; 20. On the origin of rhymes in mediaeval poetry, and its bearing on the authenticity of the early Welsh poems; 21. On the history of the drama in the middle ages; 22. On the literature of the troubadours; 23. On the history of comic literature during the middle ages; 24. On the satirical literature of the Reformation.