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Monasteriales Indicia: The Anglo-Saxon Sign Language

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This is a straightforward translation work. The signs were developed for monks, living in monasteries, who had taken a vow of silence. As a result, the signs tend to be skewed toward things that monks would need to speak of: terms for ceremonial clothing and objects, religious holidays and time (the canonical hours, matins, lauds,vespers, compline, etc), animals, food, people and places in the monastery, etc. The people who were using these signs already spoke the language, and many of them were literate, but had *chosen* not to speak. These signs provided a terse, rudimentary way to communicate without speaking.
One can draw some conclusions by what signs were developed and what signs are lacking; for example, one assumes that they only made ups signs for foods they actually ate, and situations that were routine.

The book was exactly what it was supposed to be - a description of monastic hand signs from a Benedictine monastery - but had nothing more, and was very brief. Useful and worth buying, but not as a sole source of information.