Dude includes no references, uses the term “obviously” liberally, and concludes with “there’s no index so it’s still not possible to decode it.” Yeah…
1 Like
That’s something that could stand to be pointed out more. We know the parchments date to the 15th century. With enough fidelity to say early 15th. It can’t be newer than that. Though it can be older. We know the pigments are formulated the way inks and pigments were during the 15th century so it can’t be much older than that.
But come on. We have records of law suits between peasants over pigs from that time period. We have what are effectively linguistics text books from that period. We have personal letters between people from that period. We have Contemporary accounts of whole ethnic groups/peoples who disappeared completely from that period.
The idea that there would be no other example or even reference to this language. The people who used it. Or nothing else stretches the imagination.
Har har. But that does hint another really good point. We tend to think of monasteries/monks/collections of clergy with these skills as kind of rare. Small groups of dedicated zelots scratching away on velum for its own sake. Locking the results away to be revered. But that’s not really true.
I remember visiting family in Europe and doing the whole “lets see the ruins thing”. The sheer number of monasteries, convents and Abbeys packed into Ireland. They seemed more common than Walmarts are today. And were certainly no further apart. And at every stop there was a story. This is where the monks made the beer, this monastery specialized in beer. This is where the nuns raised the bees, this convent specialized in honey and bees wax. This is where the looms were, this Abbey was a a major center for cloth production.
Each one of those places needed a business. A trade (if not more than one) to keep the doors open and keep the clergy, monks and nuns busy. It might have been brewing. It might have been bee keeping. Or it might have been writing manuscripts. Not out of the ecstatic joy of endlessly copying bibles. But for money. We have thousands of examples of manuscripts, books, bibles and what have that were commissioned from such and such monastery by some one moneyed. A particularly wealthy parish. A bishop. Nobility. Even merchants. Or by collection for small towns and villages. Hell some times we even know the names of the scribes.
Books were rare. And the services to make them expensive. Comparatively. They weren’t unattainable. And we still have thousands and thousands of books and documents from the era at least.
6 Likes
Cappelli’s dictionary of abbreviation in medieval Latin, referred to in Gibbs’s text, is such a fundamental reference that it seems nonsensical to imagine, as he does, that no-one has looked at the Voynich ms. and has not thought in terms of such abbreviations being present. The first thing any palaeographer or mediavalist does on reading a new text is to examine the contractions; these frequently are so obvious that their interpretation flows from the meaning of the text, but particularly in secular documents there can be unfamiliar, atypical contractions, at which point Cappelli is the first point of reference. Probably the most familiar and common of the conventional Latin text contractions (and the only one still in use that comes to mind) is “&”, the ampersand, standing for the Latin “et.”
In addition, these abbreviations are not found strung together as in Gibbs’ hypothesis, but are interlarded throughout the text to save space and time. This wasn’t an equivalent to a shorthand system; verb stems, for example, tend to be written out, with just the conjugated ending in a highly contracted form. Sometimes entire simple words (meum, [=my] for example), might be present in abbreviation, but to a contemporary reader (or an expert modern one) the interpolated “plaintext” is usually derived contextually. However, a text composed entirely of abbreviations would likely be as impenetrable to a reader in 1430 as it would today. And, of course, there was no Cappelli’s dictionary back then to aid the reader (or, for that matter, the writer).
3 Likes
Right! The codicil to “This is the Decoded Manuscript Right In Here” should say “Exactly this sort of mansplaining cannot be trusted; but according to my GF’s cat, this is the forgotten translation, sorry. [GF’s cat’s annotated record included inline because it’s sort of for a newspaper of record once removed, after all.]”
This improves over “baths vade mecum makes sense if you take it with you -into a bath full of dank Belgian bladderworts.-” Which, if you have to fire up your hip bath to get in on, I don’t doubt so much. How did the mood chart go then anyhow, huge range of expression between discomfort levels 5 and 15? Thye bombe offe poppyies does nytthinge!
4 Likes
Maybe it was “medical advice for women? I’ll just write any old nonsense then”
On the one hand, you’re right, it was an involved process, and not a hobby. There was not “michaels” art and manuscript store to go get extra sheets.
On the other hand, individual human beings have on many many occasions throughout history spent well more than the price of a large house, on a hoax.
1 Like
I think the solution is obvious – it is actually the encoded text of Ethel Voynich’s The Gadfly. It’s called the “Voynich manuscript” because Ethel’s husband Wilfrid supposedly discovered it while in Italy, but that seems rather too convenient.
1 Like
2 Likes
Hopefully it works better than their last attempt
3 Likes
Well, this copy certainly seems to have fairly heavy DRM… 
2 Likes
I’d say this looks a lot less like “The Voynich Manuscript appears to be a fairly routine anthology of ancient women’s health advice” and more like “The Voynich Manuscript remains undecoded, but here’s an uncredentialed crank who made up a poorly-supported theory for a TV show.”
2 Likes
Also, I’m sure we’ve all heard of the Codex Seraphinianus.
1 Like
“Preacher”?
2 Likes
I’m sure we will find the key to translating the manuscript at the bottom of the Oak Island Money Pit.
1 Like
I guess that someone like a early version of Count Cagliostro (ie: an occult conman) could have created the manuscript as part of a medieval scam.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
