A three-sided border composed of bars, terminating at either end in a drollery and a human face (or mask), both embellished with highly burnished gold leaf. Although some have identified the drollery as a lion, its form bears little resemblance to a leonine figure.
In the right margin, a standing male figure raises both hands with palms facing outward, a gesture suggesting the rejection of something unpleasant or threatening. Although usually identified as a dancing figure, the pose is more consistent with a gesture of aversion. The text is finished with line-ending ornaments of varied designs in combinations of red, blue, and gold.

One major illuminated two-line initial on a blue and pink ground ornamented with white tracery integrated into the border design. Four one-line initials alternating blue flourished in red and burnished gold flourished in light blue.

The manuscript was long thought to have been made for Jean III de Ghistelles (c. 1255-1315), Lord of Gistel and Ingelmunster, Flanders, although this attribution has been questioned by Peter Kidd (Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, November 2017).

Rosy Schilling identified the manuscript as having once belonged to Sir Sydney Cockerell. It was broken up and dispersed in the 1950s by Heinrich Eisemann, and its surviving leaves are now divided among public and private collections. Margaret Manion, Vera F. Vines and Christopher de Hamel identified 41 extant leaves in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections (Thames and Hudson, 1989), pp. 91–92. Their census includes leaves sold at auction, leaves handled by Maggs Bros, and others in private collections.

This leaf was acquired for the Reed Collection from Maggs Bros on 28 February 1956. Maggs Bros purchased it, together with a second leaf from the same manuscript, at a Sotheby’s sale on 19 December 1955 (lot 28).

A reconstruction (https://fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-uard) has been initiated with the aim of reuniting further leaves and to document the manuscript's surviving fragments in a single digital environment.