The term "Menaeon" refers to a set of 12 books, one for each month of the year, hence the plural term "Menaea". These volumes are of unequal size and contain the Sequences of fixed feasts. The hymns contained in the Menaea were composed by perhaps hundreds of hymnographers in completely distinct periods. Some are well-known and famous, while others are unknown or anonymous. The Menaea and other hymnographic liturgical books were intended for use in monasteries, not in parish churches: the long, hymn-filled sequences and readings prescribed in the books were for the monks. 

The 12 books present sacred figures of Christianity for imitation or recall sacred events in the present.