A rare 1,000-year-old Bible believed to have been produced by women is set to be auctioned this month, with estimates placing its value between about $880,000 (£690,000) and $1.26 million (£980,000).

It will go under the hammer at Christie’s London, which has described the tenth-century manuscript as “one of the most significant manuscript discoveries in decades.”

It is believed to have been created within the female scriptorium of Essen Abbey in Germany.

Carlotta De La Tour of Christie’s said there is “a growing body of documentary evidence challenging the conventional view that monks and men were the sole agents of cultural activity in the Middle Ages,” adding that this Bible “bears witness to women as cultural agents in medieval Germany.”

The text was written in an elegant Carolingian script and includes prayers “for the veiling of handmaidens of God,” supporting the view that canonesses created it.

Experts believe two women worked on the manuscript, which likely took years to complete.

After the abbey’s suppression in 1803, the Bible entered the collection of theologian August Friedrich Vilmar before later being acquired by the Chicago Theological Seminary.

The Bible will be auctioned on December 10.