[3] A similar use of runes in a Scandinavian manuscript from this era is known only from the small fragment SKB A 120, a religious text about Mary's lament at the cross.
[4] Some historians have considered it feasible that the Codex is a part and remainder of a formerly substantial collection of Scandinavian runic manuscripts, obliterated during the destruction of monasteries and libraries that followed the Protestant Reformation.
Support for this idea has been found in reports written by Olaus Magnus, a Catholic ecclesiastic active during the 16th century in Uppsala, Sweden, who fled the country due to the Reformation.
According to Olaus Magnus, there were many books written with runes in important Swedish religious centres, such as Skara and Uppsala, before the Reformation.
[8] Like other Scandinavian manifestations of Medieval runes, the runic alphabet of the Codex Runicus contains a sign for each phoneme of the language.