This large document is evidently an individual assessment for the West Riding of Yorkshire relating to the Poll Tax granted to Richard II in 1379. The main body of the assessment contains no explicit details of the grant, but an indenture attached as a schedule to rot 45 explicitly denotes this tax. This indenture, dated at Doncaster on 19 September 1379, was made between William de Melton and John Saville, the assessors and taxers for the West Riding, and Sir Peter Mauleverer and Richard Lewer of Doncaster, the collectors, and stated that the assessors had delivered to the collectors 53 indented rolls containing the assessment for the West Riding for this tax. Thus it is possible to be certain that the surviving document is entirely complete, and it even retains its original parchment wrapper.

The indenture is dated, and thus the rest of the piece must have been compiled either on the same day, 19 September 1379, or (more probably, given its huge size) shortly before that date.

This document contains around 35,000 personal names, almost all of which are perfectly legible and complete, making this one of the most extensive and valuable of the surviving returns for this tax.

The place names listed within a number of wapentakes clearly follow the same order in which they generally appear in standard assessments for fifteenths and tenths (e.g. E 179/206/22), and from this it would seem that rot 3 may well originally have followed rot 1 (it may have been replaced in the wrong place when the roll was reconstructed in the modern period). However, this similarity does not occur throughout, and many names appear here which do not appear in fifteenths and tenths, particularly in the wapentakes of Claro and The Ainsty. While an assessment from a fifteenth and tenth was almost certainly used for reference purposes by the assessors, clearly it was not adhered to strictly.

The index for Staincross includes two entries for West Bretton. The second of these (rot 17) is explicitly 'West Bretton' on the manuscript, while the first (rot 16) is given merely as 'Bretton'. However, the first person assessed below 'Bretton', a John Dronsfield, is from a family known to have resided at West Bretton, and thus it seems that the two assessments refer to different parts of the same township. The identity of 'Heaton' on rot 33d is unclear. It is probably Kirkheaton, but the entry 'Heaton' on fifteenths and tenths almost certainly relates to Earlsheaton in Dewsbury parish, and since the assessors appear to have used a fifteenth and tenth assessment for reference, it may refer to that place. The schedule attached to rot 34 would seem to contain the final entries for Methley, the majority of which appears on rot 34d. The entry following Ripley on rot 44d is explicitly 'Marton with hamlet'; Marton was generally taxed with neighbouring Grafton, and this is presumably the 'hamlet' concerned.