Anthony Fitzherbert. Le novel natura brevium. London: in aedibus Richardi Tottelli, 1588. Written in Law-French.
Contemporary blind tooled calf. 17 cm x 11 cm.

These tables illustrate one of Richard Tottell's attempts at simplyfying the finding of legal citations.

The tables shown are to the writ on trespass. The older version only directed the reader to two sections in this large topic. Tottell later made finding the exact location of specific sections simple.  Whereas the original table of contents directed the reader simply to folio 85 for the beginning of the section on trespass, this edition added a more granular table by William Rastell that located a particular entry on the form of the writ at precisely “87g, 88i and 89b” (see below). View beginning of new table. 

Original table -- Click image to enlarge -- Detail	Rastell's table -- Click image to enlarge -- Detail

The numerous marginal notations indicate that this work was actively used by a practitioner, who adopted Rastell’s system for cross referencing within the book itself. 

Folio 87F -- Click image to enlarge Whole page	Folio 98E -- Click image to enlarge Whole page

Folio 87F has a note “infra H, 98E;” folio 98E has a note referring back to “87F-H.”