CLA covers only literary works; this includes legal texts but not documentary texts such as charters. It has 11 volumes, organized according to the current location of the manuscripts; these were followed by a supplement in 1971 and two sets of addenda published in 1985 and 1992. Paleography is the foundational principle of the project: every entry is accompanied by a photograph of the manuscript in black and white, at a 1:1 scale, along with a description of its contents, its state of preservation, the kind of writing used, and the possible date and geographical origin.
