In August 2016, I spent a day at the British Library trawling through many of its palaeography books (as I described here). What I was specifically in search of was examples of handwriting that matched the handwriting in the Voynich Manuscript, along with its marginalia.
As mentioned before, the document I found was Basel University Library A X 132: it’s a Sammelband (anthology or collection), with sections copied from a number of different medieval authors. The section I was most interested in (dated 1465) was fol. 83r through to fol. 101r.
With a little help from Stefan Mathys (thanks, Stefan!), I ordered some pages, along with some from the start and end of other sections, just in case the same scribal hand reappeared and included a little biographical information about that scribe. I’ve just begun writing this up as a paper (heaven knows that so little of any authority has been written about the Voynich, so I want to do this properly): but as I was going through, I noticed something interesting that I thought I’d share separately.
One of the extra sections I asked for began on f202r: and I must admit to being surprised to see an oddly familiar piece of marginalia there. Recalling the tiny marginalia at the top of the Voynich Manuscript’s page f17r…
…now look at the tiny marginalia at the top of A X 132’s fol. 202r, a “vocabularij hebreicus et grecus” (according to this):
The listing remarks that f202r is covered in “Stegmüller, Rep.bibl.6,93 Nr.8665”, i.e. Friedrich Stegmüller, Repertorium biblicum medii aevi, 11 vols. (I don’t believe that volume 6 is online, but please let me know if you manage to find a copy.)
Have you found any better matches than this?
Nick,
In ‘The curse’ you made a good argument for the marginalia on f.117r ‘s being Occitan, and commented on how that line of script begins in Occitan yet ends in Voynichese. Have you changed your mind about that? It would be helpful, I suppose, if others could see the illustration that you put in the discussion. (For those with a copy of it – p.30). I might add that I also found reason to think that the content had first reached Europe from what I suppose one might call the ‘Occitan sphere’ – within which Genoa, Mallorca, Avignon and England were all interacting, even before the events of 1415.
Nick: Fascinating!
When it comes to handwriting what scope do you believe there is for carrying out a reliable comparison? What is your opinion regarding handwriting experts? I ask this as one might feel two samples of handwriting look very similar. However it would be nice to be able to support or undermine this hypothesis on the basis of a more rigorous scientific foundation.
Nick: I am not suggesting you engage a handwriting specialist at this point. However it would be nice if we could have a consensus as to what the gold standard of proof for reliable handwriting comparison should be.
Nick,
the handwriting of the marginalia is in both cases the very common Bastarda (i.e. Schleifenbastarda) as you may find it in countless 15th century MMs.
Here you will find the transcription of the marginalia in Voynich f17r:
http://voynichms.de/skriptorium/f17r.html
A transcription of Voynich f116v (same hand, same Bastarda) together with an iconographic explanation is given here:
http://voynichms.de/skriptorium/f116v.html
I published this already in January 2017 on my website but none of the Voynicheros seems to be interested in correct paleographic work. Boring
Diane: my 2006 suggestion of Occitan still seems to me like the best match for the non-Voynichese part of the f17r marginalia, though French isn’t far behind. More broadly, the f17r handwriting seems to me to be very much in the sphere of Switzerland and Savoy, as I’ve suggested before: but it would be nice to do better than that. Unfortunately A X 132 still hasn’t been digitized and placed online, which is a shame, or else we’d be able to discuss its handwriting more fully.
Charlotte: that is your own transcription, and I have to say that I disagree with your reading of many of the letters, and of almost all the words as well.
Here is a scan of the f17r marginalia which I suspect is at higher quality than the one you relied upon (click to see full scan):
And here is a brightness/contrast-enhanced version of the same scan:
Nick,
of course it is my own transcription and not someone else’s, and there is absolutely no need for you to agree with!
Btw. I relied on Beinecke’s high resolution scans of the folios and made contrast-enhanced versions myself. But thanks for yours.
@Charlotte Auer
Kleiner Hinweis zu f116v nach Leber.
Was Du siehst heisst ( vmen ).
Wenn Du es ausspricht es ist die Dialektform von ( von einem )
Peter,
leider verstehe ich nicht so recht, was du meinst. Würdest du mich bitte über das Kontaktformular auf meiner Website anschreiben, damit wir das klären können, ohne Nick’s blog damit zu belasten? Das wäre nett und hilfreich. Danke!
Stegmüller, Repertorium
http://www.repbib.uni-trier.de/cgi-bin/rebihome.tcl
Helmut: I found that previously (but thanks for pointing it out anyway). The problem is that every search I tried within it came up empty, and I couldn’t see any part of the site that would let me browse Volume 6 “Commentaria: anonyma A-O”, even though that’s listed at the front. Is there some guide to using the site that explains how to do even the most basic thing?
Nick. And ants.
Everything is wrong. The characters are.
malPicu….allov….Puoz….hoci…vnll….munio.
Old Czech language : ( jewish substitution ).
Malpa sů….a slov….Fůzo…nosí….vešš….munio.
New Czech language :
Malba je …a slova…Vousy….nosí….vši….muňky.
English language :
The painting is ( drawing is )…..and words…..beard ( hair )….she wears….lice….mules.
Nick, regarding the marginalia you found at the top of A X 132’s fol. 202r…
Glancing at it, I notice greater connectivity between letters and a different style of “r” in both -lary and hebre- Also the stem of the g extends above the loop (which means the stroke order is different from the VMS g) and the descender is shorter and more curled, also the base of the ell has a serif and connector (and the first leading stem on the first letter is very long).
But! …it is a good find (a very good one, not only for shape but for context as top-folio marginalia), and there are many similarities in the h, b, and l. It’s difficult to find hands as close or closer.
I am working at the moment, but will run it through my mathematical filter later today when I can access my files, and will let you know how it scores in relation to the VMS marginalia.
Nick,
the site is selfexplaining.
You have to use the Suchmaske, last entry “Suche in RB”, then you put in the data you have got, in your case 8665 into lfd. Nr. (laufende Nummer/sequential number), click on Suchen. then you get Band. 6, 1 Treffer, (vol. 6, 1 hit) and you get the Stegmüller entry by clicking on 8665. I dont dare to suggest that you can browse vol. 6 by entering other numbers
Helmut: thank you very much, my ability to navigate German websites is clearly a skill I will have to work on. 🙂
Nick and ants.
The translator has misinterpreted it.
There is written that he has lice on of the pussy hair.
lice ( Anoplura ). ( Phithirus pubis ) 🙂
pussy = (!).
Undoubtedly Bastarda, undoubtedly characteristic of 15th century Germany. But are the two sequences actually the same handwriting? What they have in common is that they are both section headings in a smaller format than the main text of the section. The first question to be tackled is whether the heading of the A X 32 extract is in the same handwriting as the section text, the Hebrew-Greek vocabulary.
As for ‘malhor alhor’ [or whatever the transcription], nobody has ever made sense of it in a known language, but there is an echo of ‘qokchey okchey’ to it. Can it be that the VMS script is a superencipherment of a verbose ciphertext in Latin script?
Well that certainly clears everything up…
@Helmut Winkler
Were there in the old German also other th connections than only for double tt?
With the grammar reform Muther is now written Mutter.
Since I read it so: “mather aller lueg her vu …….”
In my dialect it would mean: ” Mutter aller, schau ihr vu…..”
in english: “Mother of all, look at her …”
Where I can put the word where I can not read exactly “vulnerar” (wounded), since it is on this page are wound clusters (Anthyllis vulneraria)
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/the-mysterious-voynich-manuscript-has-finally-been-decoded/
Noel: I believe they are talking out of their ars. 😉
Hi Nick,
The Codex Otlazpan has perfect matches for the following EVA letters: EVA a, c, d, e, h, i, j, k, l, o, r, y, and z. Códice de Otlazpan by Birgitta Leander, (1967), Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico.
The Codex Osuna has precise matches for the following EVA letters: EVA a, c, d, e, h, I, k, m, n, o, r, v, and x. Pintura del Gobernador, alcaldes y regidores de Mexico “Codice Osuna” Ministerio de Educácion y Ciencia, Dirección General de Archhivos y Bibliotecas. Here is a link. https://www.wdl.org/en/search/?additional_subjects=Osuna%20Codex
The Códice Santa María de Asunción has precise matches for the following EVA letters: EVA a, e, h, I, k, m, n, o, t, u, x, y, and z. The Códice Santa María de Asunción: Households and Land in Sixteenth-Century Tepetlaozto, Barbara J. Williams and H.R. Harvey, 1997, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
There is a perfect match for EVA T and the following other EVA letters EVA a, d, e, h, I, k, o, r, s, and t, in the Códice de Santo Toribio Xicotzinco Documento A on page 256 of La Escritura Pictografica En Tlaxcala: Dos mil años de experiencia mesoamericana by Luis Reyes Garcia. 1993, Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala.
You may find each of these letters circled or otherwise indicated in the appendices to my little monograph Voynich Manuscript Aztec Herbal from New Spain in Academia.edu, researchgate.net or http://voynichms.com
Happy hunting,
John
John, I’m wondering why you would look for handwriting matches to the VMS in 16th-century New World documents when those same styles are evident in European documents from the 15th century from which the New World hands are descended.
I’m also not sure why you are discussing in detail the subject of the main-text handwriting on a blog specifically about the marginalia style, which is in a different hand. Is it because you see them as the same hand?
Hi JK,
I looked for handwriting matches in 16th century documents because my brother told me he had seen documents like the Voynich Manuscripts at El Escorial in Spain and because he thought , and still does, that the Voynich Manuscript was part of the work of Dr. Francisco Hernandez. (I don’t, but it is reasonable that he may have included it in his works, along with works of others, such as Sahagun.)
I neglected to say that the marginalia is only of marginal interest to me. The main text is much more central. The marginalia are being explored, I think, to give clues to the main text. I have gone straight for the prize. If you will trouble yourself ever so slightly by actually looking at the link to the Codex Osuna you will easily recognize several of the Voynich letters. That might encourage you to read my monograph where you can see the EVA letters written in other documents besides the Voynich in the appendices. I hope I don’t sound too snarky, but really–you look, you will see.
Cheers,
John
I must apologise for our host’s lapse. One can only say “Helmet” when referring to a once popular rockband, which originally wanted to call itself Helmut (just that the record label said “nah”).
The meaning of the name best translates to “high-minded”.
Helmut: my apologies, Cipher Mysteries is getting so many comments each day at the moment that I’m having to respond using my mobile, with all the perils of unexpected AutoCorrect. 🙁
Nick: I was watching the Voynich Ninja interview with Raymond Clemens and I had a thought, probably one that has occurred to other people:
Raymond was pointing out that there are no corrections in the Voynich. I would think in the situation where not only is the author writing text, but in addition has to implement a complex cipher then either the manuscript is strewn with uncorrected mistakes, which seems unlikely to me, or the author worked out on a another medium, not necessarily parchment due to its cost, what he was going to write in advance.
It also seems that the lack of corrections, and (what seems to me), extreme repetition, and the literal impossibility of some of the drawings as literal ‘real world’ objects, that we have further reason to suspect that this is a type of “trance writing” brought on by chemistry, or possibly that of someone in an altered, or even unwell state of mind.
John, there are some signs of correction in the manuscript. I won’t speak about the repetition in the written text . Nick’s posts have talked about that more than once.
The problem isn’t that the drawings can’t refer to “real world objects” but that researchers keep expecting that all drawings must (a) attempt to be literal or (b) entirely subjective ,,, or (c) be bad or mad.
It’s the assumptions a person makes that shows the flaws in their argument, no matter how elaborate the superstructure.
Voynich studies’ century-long history is marked by a failure to study the history of western art and/or (b) ignorance of anything but western art.
As someone who has been working in that field for several decades, and has been researching the Voynich drawings since 2009, I can tell you that there’s nothing mad, or bad about the drawings. I don’t work on it for love (for love you have to espouse the Germanist storyline), or for money (if I wanted money, I wouldn’t share any of my research, in a free blog). I do it because I’ve found that for people willing to do a bit of work – quite a lot of preliminary study, actually – the manuscripts drawings show Beinecke MS 408 to be a more historically important document than it is credited with being. I’m continuing the research even now I’ve retired – just because I like the manuscript.
Sometimes I wonder just how many Voynicheros are, actually, focused on the manuscript as against those researching only to hunt support for one or another speculation.
But speaking of “unwell” – I know what you mean. I’m tempted to think that every time I see arguments which come down to “the manuscript doesn’t support our team’s preferred storyline, so manuscript is wrong/bad/unreal” then ‘unbalanced’ is the word that comes to mind.
Diane, you are quite right, there are corrections in the script. IMHO relatively many corrections. Often they make a thick, fat dot from a „typo“ as it is difficult to erase anything. Example – the „optical tools“ page 102v–1 (lower part 4th line 3rd word or 6th line 7th word from the left). I mostly specified the corrections on the analysed pages in my pdfs. The corrections are frequently at the beginning of words… what does it mean? Btw I agree with the other points too.
Darius,
thank you for the kind words. Is the “optical tools” description from Rich Santacoloma’s work (which I’ve already read) or someone else’s work – if so, I’d be glad to know where it can be read.
I couldn’t decide if those blots were corrections or just the result of a quill becoming a bit too frayed. Glad I don’t have your headaches.
You could compare handwriting using German HAT3 software.
You have to build folders with sub-folder samples for ‘knowns’ and folder and subfolders for ‘unknowns’ Then it will compare.
If the 5 samples match then they score about 20% each alike. 5 x 20% =100%.
It gets easier when you try…but you can always ask the developer.
https://www.fdr.uni-hamburg.de/record/902
Diane, the “optical tools” were indeed mentioned by John S some months ago as an interpretation give by Rich S.
We can see that sometimes an ink blot fills the inner part of a loop like in some 8s in this passage but take the 4th line 3rd word example. When you imagine the blot isn’t there. Which glyph would be built out of the edges? We don’t have such a broad glyph in VMS.
Paleography is not my field of interest… But I would be very curious to hear how would be the scores for comparison of e.g. 116v vs some Michael of Rhodes handwriting or Nicholas of Cusas’ vs one of VMS hands.