While the exact date of the codex's creation is difficult to establish, judging from its content and style, it was completed before the 1521 Spanish Conquest of Mexico however likely after the year 1500 due to the Mixtec lord Iya Nacuaa Teyusi Ñaña, translated as Eight Deer Jaguar Claw, being noted in the manuscript as being the dynasty's latest descendant, who is mentioned as the 11th century lord of Tilantogo in other Mixtec codices.

[3] J. Eric Thompson, a British archaeologist and expert on the ancient Mayas, suggested that the manuscript's previous owner was Bishop Jerónimo Osório of Faro, Portugal before it was looted by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex and given to his friend Thomas Bodley in the sixteenth century, where it later became part of the Bodleian Library.

The Codex Bodley offers a relatively complete review of family relationships among the dynasties of the main cacicazgos (community kingdoms) in the Mixteca Alta region.

[7] Academic interest in the codex has focused on the Tilantongo and Tiaxiaco dynasties depicted on both sides of the manuscript, who once lived in the modern day Mexican State of Oaxaca.

In 1949, the archaeologist Alfonso Caso determined that the purpose of the genealogy was to calculate the line of descent for Tilantogo, and its relations to Teozacoalco (a still-occupied settlement) following a creation story after an event known as the "War of Heaven," as well as the saga of an individual known as Eight Deer, who is likely used to show the supposedly great future awaiting Tilantongo.

Despite this, however, it's difficult to link the codex with any particular polity due to it listing the genealogies of numerous families that, at times, were in direct conflict with one-another.

After setting out on a daring quest, he challenges and beats the Sun God and Venus God to a ball game, "conquering" both and earning their favor, as well as a stone that carried what's referred to as the, "precious power of the West," referring to the River of Ashes (The Nexapa River) which was both the marker for the end of Mixtec influence as well as the realm of the fertility goddess, Old Lady One Grass.

After he does so, he's invited by Cē Ācatl Topiltzin, King of the Toltec Empire, to receive a turquoise nose plug, a mark of kingship, and make an alliance.

Meanwhile, back at Tilantongo, the young adult Lord 2 Rain 'Twenty Jaguars,' as the text writes, went on a spiritual quest but failed to return, dying (at least physically) and leaving the kingdom without a leader.

[9] The reverse side of the codex follows the house of Red and White Bundle, the rivals of Eight Deer, and depicts things from their point of view.

The rest of the codex proceeds to follow the familial lines of the houses before ending with Lord Eight Grass on Page 21 (due to Kingsborough's confusing numbering).

According to Friar Francisco de Burgoa, however, there were at least three different locations believed to be the origins of the Mixtec nobility, and possibly more implied by the Codex Zouche-Nuttall.