The Voynich Ninja

It occurred to me that there is something strange with the bottom margin in the VMS.

Imagery can be as close to the bottom edge of a folio as possible. But this is not the case with the text.

In contrast to imagery, in the overwhelming majority of folios the bottom margin is quite notable - the text abrupts well before the edge is near. One could argue that this was done to preserve the text from the potential wear of the folios' edges. But this is not the case with the top margin. There are many folios where the text is very close to the upper edge of the folio. But I found only one folio - that is f99r, - where the text comes reasonably close to the bottom edge. (Folio 86 may be also mentioned, but here it is the upper side of the text block that faces the bottom edge of the folio - since the text is reversed upside down.)

So, no matter what's the section, no matter whether there are images or the page is text-only, the text does not reach the bottom edge.

The question is: why?

The first and foremost reasonable explanation would be that the scribe does not begin a new paragraph if he is not sure that it would fit entirely (it is true that a paragraph in the VMS is never interrupted by the folio edge). But there are clear cases (although they seem to be in minority) when that's just not the case: e.g. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -> f106 r or You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -> f115r.

Consider the recipe section. The writing typically begins very close to the upper edge of the folio. The writing is also typically very dense. Both these facts suggest that the goal of the scribe was to use the available space to the maximum possible extent (probably he recognized that he is already short of parchment). But the bottom margin is clearly under-utilized.

One extravagant possibility, of course, is that all folios of the VMS had their upper margin cropped at some time after they were put down. Does that sound plausible? I doubt so.

Think about it Anton if this person wanted to do this manuscript in a rush,  he would leave a gutter and work quickly from the top.  Just my tid bit here.

I've noticed many texts in the Vatican library have been trimmed at the top and sometimes the folio numbers are chopped in half or chopped off all the way. Also the text is sometimes very close to the top.

I also noticed one herbal where some of the tops of the plants have been trimmed.



I don't know if there was a particular medieval tradition in trimming the tops (rather than the bottoms), but it appears to have happened frequently. Perhaps this was also done with the VMS (there's evidence of it on the last folio). It has been bound at least twice.

It's an interesting observation. The bottom margin messes with many of the plant drawings, but not with the text. 

Now the conservation of space argument only applies to the drawings. Many plant pages have only a couple of paragraphs on them. In some other herbals, the text runs on like a massive block and drawings are inserted in specific spots that are left open.

 Now we know with near certainty that the text was added after the drawings. It would also be customary for drawings to be done by a different person. If drawings get in trouble, it's usually at the bottom. 

So my guess is that the persons who needed to add the text were instructed to make sure it fit well on the page, and leave a bottom margin. 

It could also be that they were copying a pre-written text, perhaps from another medium, and they mimicked the way it was divided. This could be another manuscript, or clay tablets wher the text was written out first or whatever. They started on top just to be sure, but since the source medium was of consistent size, were always left with a bottom margin, or more if there was little text.

Yes I also thought of that, but there is a problem with this interpretation.

Would it be so, the text would have exhibited some "relief" towards the bottom edge, in terms of text density. Imagine that a scribe has a pre-built source which he has to transfer to the secondary medium. Since the two media are of a different size, he is not sure in advance whether the source text would fit to the secondary medium on a 1:1 page-to-page basis. Hence he begins with high text density - small letter size and tight line spacing. But as he progresses towards the end of the (source) folio he would get more and more sure that the source text would fit the secondary folio (just because we know now that it actually did fit). Hence he would naturally decrease the density - at least by increasing the size of the characters and/or the line spacing. But that is not the case. The line spacing is not increased.

One explanation of the above migth be that the scribe uses some kind of grille which simply does not allow him to change parameters such as character size or line spacing. But in this case we would have to admit that he uses different grilles for different sections - I think the text in the botanical section is more "relaxed" in terms of density.

What conclusions can I derive?

1. A Voynichese paragraph cannot be interrupted by a page break. (Marco, JKP and others: is that common for plain text manuscripts of the time?)

2. Up to the very bottom of the page, the scribe still does not know in advance whether the next paragraph will fit the page or will not. Hence, to comply with 1), he postpones the next paragraph to the next page, to be safe.

3. From 2), it follows that plain text is "translated" to Voynichese on-the-fly, just along its being put down on parchment. If it were not so, - in other words, if the source text were prepared already in Voynichese, - situations like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -> You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. would not have taken place, because the scribe would be able to assess that the next paragraph safely fits into the same page.

Regarding cropping the tops. I can imagine that the practice to crop the margins was in order to fit the parchment folio size to the available cover size. And, if the two sizes do not differ too much from each other, it is sufficient to crop just one margin to solve the task. (However, I do not know why the choice would always fall onto the top margin).

But I have an impression that the VMS has, at least, its bottom margin cropped. Look e.g. at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (and this is not the only botanical folio suggesting that).

For a manuscript written in "cipher" (whether real or synthetic), it seems likely it was written in advance (perhaps on wax tablets) and copied on to the final parchment.

One-to-one substitution ciphers can be learned in an hour or so, and then written like normal text, but there's no convincing evidence that the VMS is a one-to-one substitution code. It's structured in a completely different way and would not have been easy to write without some kind of reference.

(23-04-2017, 04:51 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What conclusions can I derive?

1. A Voynichese paragraph cannot be interrupted by a page break. (Marco, JKP and others: is that common for plain text manuscripts of the time?)

2. Up to the very bottom of the page, the scribe still does not know in advance whether the next paragraph will fit the page or will not. Hence, to comply with 1), he postpones the next paragraph to the next page, to be safe.

3. From 2), it follows that plain text is "translated" to Voynichese on-the-fly, just along its being put down on parchment. If it were not so, - in other words, if the source text were prepared already in Voynichese, - situations like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -> You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. would not have taken place, because the scribe would be able to assess that the next paragraph safely fits into the same page.

While the first conclusion is safe (surely it's an observation?), the second is not and the third is speculation.

1) Several pages of Quire 20 have the same number of stars/recipes on both recto and verso. This suggests that the writer could have been aiming for a specific number, regardless of whether another recipe would fit. Both 105r and 105v have ten recipes, 104r and 104v have thirteen, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and 106v have fifteen (though the stars don't match), and 107r and 107v also have fifteen.

2) There's no guarantee that the order we see pages in today is the original writing order. Pelling has put forward a good argument that Quire 20 may have originally been two, and that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was the original first page.