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The Vanden Stock Manuscript (Brussels, KBR, II 116) is a small fifteenth-century manuscript counting 39 leaves made of paper with eight different watermarks, and can be divided in three codicological units, all written by the same scribe in an idiosyncratic hand. An examination of this hand and its corrections in the margins suggests that all units were copied for private use. The first unit (f. 1-22) – which lacks the first and eighth leaves of the first quire, and therefore the beginning of the first text – contains three clusters of texts: first three lists (questions and answers, advice on table manners and an excerpt from Seghelijn van Jherusalem); second three texts on the final judgement (memento mori) and the apocalyptic events surrounding it (a.o. an excerpt from Lucidarius); third several groups of sayings in which religious topics are present but not the main focus. Another text about the finality of life (Van tijtverlies) closes this unit. The second unit (one bifolio: f. 23-24) contains another group of sayings. The third unit (f. 25-37) contains a verse translation of the seven penitentiary psalms. Only after it was decided that the three units should be bound together, the final bifolio (f. 38-39), containing a single text, was added to the codex. This text, a so-called abc-darium, is the only prescriptive text in the codex, stressing its overall function: a collection of texts containing useful information concerning everyday life and the afterlife. The name giver of this codex, Olivier vanden Stock, was a sixteenth-century owner of the manuscript who wrote his name in de lower margin of f. 5r.

The paper codex handschrift-Serrure (Brussels KBR, II 144) codicologically and substantively consists of a number of parts: the first part (f. 1r–165v) is written by the hands A, B and C; the hands w, x, y and z each added a small text. The second part (f. 166r–169v) was copied by hand D. All hands are from the sixteenth century, only hands y and z are from the seventeenth century. Most of the codex is by hand A (f. 1r–113v), who possibly wrote around 1555 in the Dutch-German border area between Sittard, Maastricht and Aachen. The copyist used written sources for his collection of texts; he partly determined the systematic division of the text groups and chose clearly contemporary secular and spiritual texts with themes such as love and friendship, honor and happiness, wealth and poverty, death and life. Some Latin inscriptions and pseudo-Latin texts could indicate student use. The part of hand A mainly contains rhymed sayings and epigrams, sacred and secular songs, proverbs, love questions with answers, cisioiani, farcical sermons and parodies of prescriptions. Many texts are intended to be didactic or moralistic. After the texts of hand A a few leaves were originally left blank (f. 114r–121r). Then hand B (f. 121v–148r) wrote a large number of High German riddles, which are also known from the Straßburger Rätselbuch. After that hand C wrote on the leaves left blank (f. 114r–120r) love songs and spells. This hand C also wrote a collection of prescriptions after the riddles of hand B (f. 149v–165v). Finally hand D (f. 166r–169v) wrote a smaller collection of prescriptions for horses. It is unclear if this last quire was added to the codex when it was bound. Hands B, C and D all wrote at the end of the sixteenth century in a Dutch-German border dialect that can be found somewhat more northerly than the dialect of hand A.