The contributors were generally church musicians such as Hilton himself, Nelham and Holmes, or court composers such as the Lawes brothers, Henry and William, and Simon Ives. There is evidence that the catches were sung by the composers and their friends in off-duty hours, especially the taverns and ale houses around Parliament Square. The subject matter includes more in the way of street cries and conviviality than in the Ravenscroft catches, and 37 (of 138) are devotional hymns and canons, only a few of which are in Latin. "Here dwells a pretty maid" by Cranford, another church musician, is the sort of minority contribution that made some nineteenth commentators consider all catches to be bawdy; it is said that a soldier singing this three-part catch (alone?) was heard by Cromwell and hauled before his colonel.