When ascribing a date of circa 800 to the book

[bmfo]

When ascribing a date of circa 800 to the book, some authorities cite specific similarities between its style and that of several other discovered manuscripts for which production dates are known.

I looked up on the dictionary for the use of 'Ascribe to', but I couldn't get the exact meaning of the bolded phrase.
What does it mean? And can you please explain that kind of structure grammatically?

Thank you in advance!

 

[Amelot]

Good catch. Not many native speakers would have seen that. The writer got it backwards. You assign a date to a book, and you ascribe a book to a date. Does that untangle the grammar for you?

Not a teacher.