The exact date of the text's composition is unclear, but Janet Shirley suggests a completion date of early 1324 at the latest. The manual was based on Gui's practical experience, but it also relied heavily on the writings of others for subjects in which he had little experience; for example, his description of the Waldensians includes passages lifted directly from Stephen of Bourbon's "Tractatus de diversis materiis predicabilibus" and David of Augsburg's "De inquisitione hereticorum". Gui's text was one of the most widely copied and read inquisitorial manuals during the medieval period, superseded only by the Catalan inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich's fourteenth-century "Directorium Inquisitorum," and heavily influenced later inquisitorial practice. Six manuscripts of the work survive, located in the archives of Toulouse, the Vatican Library, the British Museum, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. The first printed edition was published in 1886, when the text was translated to French by the Bishop of Beauvais, Marie-Jean-Celestin Douais.