In a comment to my last post, I remarked that I suspect the labels on the pages with the zodiac roundels might be verbosely-enciphered syllables of a cisiojanus mnemonic. As an example of how this might work, I expanded out “cisiojanus epi sibi vendicat”: unfortunately, this was for January, and January was (circa 1400-1450) associated with Aquarius, which – along with Capricorn – is one of the two zodiac signs that were (probably) removed from the Voynich Manuscript, alas.
Consequently I need to pick a different target. Hence my plan is to Attack The Fish! (i.e. Pisces, f70v2)
So, what I’ll be doing over the next few days / weeks (though I sincerely hope not months) is exploring the world of Cisiojanus through a fishy February lens. This will involve understanding the saints, syllables, languages, traditions etc. For example, February 1st celebrates St Brigide v. [“v.” = virginis], February 2nd is Purificatio Marie (this is Candlemas, celebrated 40 days after Christmas, which is the day Mary went to the Temple in Jerusalem to be purified, following Jewish law), 5th is for St Agatha, 9th for St Appolonia, and so on.
For anyone wanting to come along for the ride, here’s a link to February from (arguably) the nearest example of an astronomical calendar we have, i.e. the “Astronomical medical calendar in German (Studio of Diebolt Lauber at Hagenau, about 1430 – 1450)“. I haven’t yet read Rosy Schilling’s work on this, but I plan to do this very shortly. Similarly, here’s a cisiojanus column in a volkskalender February from Fribourg MS L. 309, another nice manuscript I’ve previously linked to here. There will be more, many more!
Just so you know, it’s easy to Google web pages with February cisiojanus manuscripts. This is because they typically start “bri pur blasus…” or “bri pur bla sus”. One exceptional source for liturgical calendar stuff is the Usuarium (here’s its page for February), which I hadn’t seen before today.
I can barely believe I haven’t thought of this before (or maybe I have but have forgotten it?), but could the key here be as simple as:
ok = black = normal day
ot = red = feast day
?
As a side note, I’m guessing that the original crowned nymph will turn out to be celebrating the author’s preferred saint’s day.
And furthermore, I wonder whether one or more of the fifteenth century librarians who looked after the Voynich Manuscript also managed to decrypt the sequence enough to add crowns to their own preferred nymph dates.
And finally, I’m sure it has been noted before (Rene will surely remember this), but a strong sign that the Pisces zodiac roundel page is actually February is the fact that there is never a February 30th (and the 30th star on the Pisces page is an afterthought attached to the fish rather than to a nymph).
Health tip for February from MS L.309 / page 10.
Beware of the cold and do not wash your head or cut your hair.
Nick, a couple of – hopefully – helpful comments.
A person’s “saint’s day” was the day of whatever saint was celebrated in his or her region’s calendar on the day that person was born, though according to local customs (which differed in different regions), a person might treat as special the day on which the feast occurred for the saint after whom they were named, if indeed their forename was a Christian name.
You assume the manuscript had one ‘author’; I can’t say I’ve seen much in the manuscript to support that idea of Wilfrid’s, even if someone else is substituted for Wilfrid’s “Roger Bacon.”
Question – when you speak of ‘librarians’ having the manuscript during the 15thC – to me this would seem to imply a theory that the manuscript was held, by then, in a very large library, rather than being (say), privately owned by a person f modest means. I’d be interested to know what it is about the manuscript which leads you to think so.
Also – Aren’t you making more difficulties for your work by imagining that the month inscribed ‘March’ were February? It hasn’t even been firmly established that there was meant to be a rigid one-to-one correspondence between the Voynich calendar’s star-flowers and the number of days in a given month. There’s no problem with the fish having been employed as central emblem for that month; it just tells us the calendar follows the model of southern-European rather than northern ‘labours of the months’ order. It also suggests, doesn’t it, that if your ‘cisiojanus’ idea should prove verifiable, that the particular roster for which it serves as mnemonic is more likely to be one from a southern rather than a northern region? (And that’s without taking into consideration the variations observed by particular religious orders or centres of pilgrimage).
Sorry, but it seems to me that you have a story you want to tell, and for it to work you have to make a lot of alterations from what is there to what would be there is the story were so. Surely if there were any reason to date inscription of the month-names much later than the first half of the fifteenth century, someone would have noticed that by now?
But first things first.. as one recipe begins, in an old colonial cookbook, “First put on a pair of stout boots”. [smiley]
But others are better qualified to comment on this thread, so I’ll stop.
I think one should consider that around 1500 there was a date correction of 10 or 14 days. I am no longer sure. That explains why the change of zodiac signs today always happens in the middle of the month. Around 1400 it was different. Now it tells us exactly when Pisces is.
And by the way. Every 300 years or so (I’m not entirely sure either, I don’t look at it every time) there is a correction to the orbit. Every 4 years the quarter in the leap year and then the minutes and seconds are also corrected. Then there is a 30th February. Anyone who has a birthday then is really out of luck.
Addendum:
12 X 30 = 360. 5 days too few.
What exactly was the situation around 1400, didn’t February also have 30 days?
Nick, how about the names of male relatives? For example: ‘aka’ = ‘father’ & ‘ama’ = ‘elder brother’.
Nick,
re factors possibly affecting Voynichese – I wonder if you’ve seen the nicely technical discussion in
Vivian Nutton, ‘Simon of Genoa and Medieval Medicine’, pp. 91-14
in
Barbara Zipser (ed.), Simon of Genoa’s Medical Lexicon(2015).