Liturgical rites developed at Salisbury Cathedral and used from the late eleventh century until the English Reformation.

In effect the edition is of the Ritual of the Sarum Use. The editor set out to replace the at points faulty and misleading appendix `Abbreviated Reprint of the Sarum Manual' which W.G. Henderson added to his edition of the York Manual and Processional for the Surtees Society (Manuale et Processionale ad usum insignis Ecclesiae Eboracensis, Durham 1875. In its final form the Manual is a book that has effectively been taken over by secular commercial publishers, which explains some of the curiosities it contains.