Recent research of this manuscript by Michelle P. Brown suggests that the various Anglo-Saxon component sections of this book are conceptually inter-related and primarily associated with the doctrine of the Communion of Saints ("communio sanctorum").

According to Brown the purpose of this exhortation was to emphasize the unity of the Communion of Saints in the form of the Roman Church on earth and in heaven.

[15] According to Dumville this liturgical drama seems to be one of the earliest known examples of this text, influenced by the text of the Descensus ad Infernos found in the Latin version of the extra New Testament Gospel of Nicodemus, as well as a now lost Latin pseudo-Augustinian homily that has survived in an Old English version found in the Blickling Homilies (Princeton, Princeton University Library, W.H.

The top set of accretions preceding the core is composed of 26 leaves containing between forty and fifty charters pertaining to the Abbey at Cerne Abbas and a prayer attributed to St. Augustine that date to the 14th century.

[22] Based on the palaeographical evidence in this codex, it is inferred that only a single scribe was involved in the writing of the original Anglo-Saxon text.

[23] This manuscript was decorated and embellished with four painted full-page miniatures, major and minor letters, continuing panels, and litterae notibiliores.

The color palette employed by the artist/illuminator consisted of pigments of gold, purple, blues, red, red/brown, yellow, green, white, and black.

[24] In the Book of Cerne the illuminations of the four evangelists precede each Gospel section containing the selected extracts from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

[25] In the top center set within a circular medallion or roundel is a partial frontal human bust of the Evangelist who is beardless and has a halo or nimbus.

Set within the arch is a full-length figure is the particular tetramorph beast symbol of each particular Evangelist – Human/Angel (Matthew), Lion (Mark), Ox/Calf (Luke), and Eagle (John) – inspired by the vision found in the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel 1.10.

This elaboration includes the additional architectural elements (bases) as well as the inclusion of Celtic/Irish Ultimate La Tène trumpet-spiral and pelta infill designs or motifis in the spandrels.

Below, his beast symbol within the arch consists of a full-figure, three-quarter profile figure of a winged lion that stands on its hind legs.

His beast symbol within the arch consists of a full-figure, three-quarter profile figure of a winged horned calf/ox standing on its hind hooves.

The hindquarters of this beast symbol appears to have been borrowed or copied from elsewhere, and the upper half of the calf was influenced by either a Carolingian or Mediterranean exemplar or model, thereby creating a hybrid image.

His beast symbol within the arch consists of a full-figure frontal eagle figure with its head turned to its right in profile in an "imperial" fashion.

Other decorative features are found throughout the textual components of this codex, and include the major and minor initials, continuing lettering, and litterae notabiliores.

The zoomorphic decoration in the Book of Cerne is characteristically composed of “brontosaurus-like” beasts and grotesques that indicate Hiberno-Saxon, primarily Irish, origins with influences from the Mediterranean (Coptic and Byzantine).

[42] Like a number of other manuscripts that comprise the Canterbury/Tiberius group, the specific provenance or place (i.e., scriptorium) of manufacture of the Book of Cerne is unknown.

[45] More recent studies of the Book of Cerne by Moorish, Wormald, Robinson, Brown, Walker, and Webster have supported the Southumbrian/Mercian hypothesis.

[47] The other interpretive issue concerning the Book of Cerne pertains to attempts to identify a plausible scriptorium location or origin provenance in which this codex was produced.

Generally, its Southumbian or Mercian origins are now commonly accepted based on palaeographic, codicological, and stylistic evidence, particularly the script type used and visual decorative elements of the miniatures and text.

[54] The recent in depth studies of the Book of Cerne by Brown has included this codex within the Canterbury/Tiberius group of manuscripts that she argues were produced in Mercia, Kent, and Wessex in the 8th and 9th centuries CE, a region which she defines as a “Mercian Schriftprovinz”.

However, the existing evidence seems to suggest that at some point after its production in the later 9th and early 10th centuries this codex may have been subsequently relocated somewhere in unoccupied Mercia, presumably Worcester, or even Wessex.

[58] This evacuation, along with other ecclesiastical manuscripts, was to provide a safe environment or repository to protect the book from potential Viking raids and incursions.

Despite the attachment of accretionary texts to the original Insular/Anglo-Saxon book relating to the Benedictine Abbey at Cerne in Dorset, there are even questions concerning whether or not this codex was ever physically housed at this monastery.

[59] All one can say for certain based on codicological evidence is that at some point after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, and by 1697, that these accretionary documents from Cerne Abbas were attached to the original Insular/Anglo-Saxon core.

Brown, Michelle P. “The Book of Cerne”, in Leslie Webster and Janet Backhouse, eds., The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900.

The ‘Tiberius; Group and Its Historical Context,” in Michelle P. Brown and Carol A. Farr, eds, Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe.

“The Irish elements in the Insular system of scripts to c. A.D. 850”, in H. Löwe, ed., Iren und Europa im früheren Mittelalter Volume 1.

A Re-examination of the Origin and Contents of the Ninth-Century Section of the Book of Cerne.” Journal of Theological Studies New Series XXIII (October 1972): 374–400.