The Vercelli book is a collection of homilies, saints'-lives stories, and poems from the early age of English. It was found in the Italian city of Vercelli and was probably used within a hospice specially catering to British pilgrims to Italy. This context sheds light on the unconventional arrangement of stories and poems within the book. The poems are interspersed between the homilies at three seemingly random places, making it a possible explanation that the person who transcribed the book just collected different stories and homilies from different pilgrims and arranged the book over a period of time, for local usage. This also suggests that the book was never meant to be read in full at any time.
The content of the homilies and the poems contains mainly themes and topics from central Catholic believe systems. The homilies within the book describe general topics of everyday live and religious belief. Others deal with the lives of saints. The poems are mostly narratives of various wonders and religious epiphanies. For example, the vision of the cross, described in "The Dream of the Rood" shows all the elements of a story a Christian pilgrim might want to read and think about when traveling towards a holy place. At first the excitement of the wonder, where a simple tree appears as the true cross, proving the holiness and power of God. Secondly the recount of the passion of Christ, giving ample opportunity for the reader to consider it in terms of his or her own life. And finally the caution that only true belief and fellowship of the cross will get you into the eternal bliss of heaven. This gives the pilgrim a new fervor in their reason to finish the pilgrimage.
The Vercelli book can in no sense be seen as a book meant only for monks and theological scholars. Every person able to understand the written word (which at this time were only the educated anyway) and who was on the pilgrimage was able to tell the stories within to his fellows. The stories were understandable by everyone and everyone could find a source of personal religious power from them.
