[1] The actual bookbinding technique is the same as for other medieval books, with the folios, normally of vellum, stitched together and bound to wooden cover boards.

In the Eastern Orthodox churches treasure bindings have continued to be produced, mainly for liturgical gospel books, up to the present day, and exist in many artistic styles.

During the 4th century of the Christian era, manuscripts on papyrus or vellum scrolls first became flattened and turned into books with cut pages tied together through holes punched in their margins.

Beginning in the 5th century, books were sewn together in this manner using leather thongs to make the bind stronger and longer lasting with wooden boards placed on top and bottom to keep the pages flat.

[4] Boards afforded the opportunity for decorative ornamentation, with metal casings set into the wood for the installation of precious gems, stones, and jewels.

[7] The earliest reference to them is in a letter of Saint Jerome of 384, where he "writes scornfully of the wealthy Christian women whose books are written in gold on purple vellum, and clothed with gems".

[9] Some bindings were created to contain relics of saints, and these large books were sometimes seen suspended from golden rods and carried in the public processions of Byzantine emperors.

[10] Especially in the Celtic Christianity of Ireland and Britain, relatively ordinary books that had belonged to monastic saints became treated as relics, and might be rebound with a treasure binding, or placed in a cumdach.

Though this did not significantly affect the craft of decorating books, it did mandate the number of jewels allowed depending on the position or rank of the commissioner of the work.

[15] Despite the commoditisation of book production due to the printing press, the artistic tradition of jewelled bookbinding continued in England, though less frequently and often in simpler designs.

On a visit to the Royal Library in 1598, Paul Hentzner remarked on the books "bound in velvet of different colours, though chiefly red, with clasps of gold and silver; some have pearls, and precious stones, set in their bindings.

"[17] Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, the style evolved to be one using velvet, satin, silk, and canvas in bookbinding decorated less with jewels and more with embroidery, metal threads, pearls, and sequins.

Today, a third reproduction of this binding is the only one to survive, after the second one, reproduced to Sutcliffe's design by his nephew Stanley Bray, was damaged in the Blitz during World War II.