It is divided into two parts, one dealing with the bishop and his clergy, the other relative to the laity; in both the author classifies methodically the canons of the councils in eighty-four chapters. He says himself in the preface that he does not pretend to reproduce the text literally, but with set purpose breaks up, abridges, or glosses the same, in order to make it more intelligible to "simple people"; possibly he has occasionally modified it to suit the Spanish discipline of his time. Though much has been borrowed from Latin, Gallican and African Councils, the Greek Councils furnish the greater part of the canons. The "Capitula" were read and approved at the Second Council of Braga in 572. Some writers, misled by the name, attributed them to Pope Martin I; they are in reality the work of Martin of Pannonia, better known as Martin of Braga, of which place he was archbishop in the sixth century. Their text was incorporated with the "Isidoriana", from which they were taken and edited apart by Merlin and by Gaspar Loaisa, and in the first volume of the oft-quoted work by Voel and Justel, after collation of the variants in the best manuscripts.