The Voynich Ninja

(09-07-2017, 07:06 PM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Here are more reliquaries, this time from 19r in the Oldenburger version that MarcoP linked to in the ladies with rings thread.
They do look really quite  familiar!

and there is the famous musdel (in your cutout line 5 from the lower margin)

(09-07-2017, 07:45 PM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.and there is the famous musdel (in your cutout line 5 from the lower margin)

That's very interesting as well! Thanks again, Helmut!

Ha, that's a nice idea indeed that "mus-del" may be two parts of the same word!

What is the language of the MS above? Flemish?

Actually the "den" in the VM marginalia could perfectly be "der" like in the other MS.

Anton: I'm not sure of the actual dialect but it's easier for me to read than other Germanic dialects.

I wonder what it means in this MS? I recall that "musdel" was earlier interpreted as "widow's share" or something like that in the Voynich studies?! Does it bear the same meaning here?

This really looks close to Middle Dutch to me. I'll try the bits I can understand. It seems to concern a certain wedding arrangement where a man marries a woman of lower birth. His inheritance cannot pass to her, but he is allowed to give her a "morgengave", which is part of his property he sets aside for her for after he dies - conditions apply.

The herwede is a sum of money one has to pay related to one's fiefdom, but I'm not sure of the exact legal meaning here.



Na den herwede sal dat wif nemen ere morgengave. Dar horet to alle velt perde, rindere t zeghen. vn(?) swin de vor den herden gar.tunete u_n timb? mesteswin horet aver to der mus dele.

"After the herwede, the wife/woman will take the morgengave. Part of this is all field horses, cattle and sows. ..... pig something walled? something fat pig belongs somewhere to the ?? part."

I could get more out of it when I have some more time, this is all I can say at first sight. The problem is that I don't know how to complete the abbreviation "mus", which has an o over it.

I think this describes what happens when the husband has died? If Voynich researchers have claimed before that it's about widows, it would be interesting to know how they got to that idea.

(09-07-2017, 11:42 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

I could get more out of it when I have some more time, this is all I can say at first sight. The problem is that I don't know how to complete the abbreviation "mus", which has an o over it.

If it's the same as other mostly-German manuscripts from this time and approximate place, the "o" over the mus is for the pronunciation of "oo" like a cow says moooo. This symbol died out, but it was fairly common in the late middle ages. Some manuscripts had both the "o" symbol and the umlaut symbol (as either one or two dots).

I found it, it's from moesdeel, which in German could be mus del I guess. It's original meaning is one's part of the food (!). But in the context of the Sachsenspiegel it means the widows part. In Latin:

Domestica cibaria quae mulier post mortem mariti accipit, penu familiae defuncto patre familias,

(09-07-2017, 11:42 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This really looks close to Middle Dutch to me. I'll try the bits I can understand. It seems to concern a certain wedding arrangement where a man marries a woman of lower birth. His inheritance cannot pass to her, but he is allowed to give her a "morgengave", which is part of his property he sets aside for her for after he dies - conditions apply.

The herwede is a sum of money one has to pay related to one's fiefdom, but I'm not sure of the exact legal meaning here.


...

Saxon is a real mixture. It's almost readable as old Norse. It doesn't surprise me that it looks close to Middle Dutch because the Normans were "Nor' men" (north men, Scandinavians). There are lots of DNA commonalities between Dutch and Scandinavian in the west and the Danes also settled east across the northern part of Saxony at one point.

A "morgengave" is a northern tradition, a gift given on the morning after a big event (as to a bride). They used the Norwegian/Danish spelling rather than the Swedish. The tradition was brought as far south as Swabia by Scandinavian migrants (I don't know if it went any farther south than this).

"He is ok..." and "dar horet to alle" are very Norse, but then you get "velt" following it in German, rather than "fold" or "verden".

herwede - gift/payment/tribute

and "dele" (del) - part/portion/share of in Norse rather than in German.



It reminds me of the marginalia across the top of the plant page, which has always struck me as a blend of French-Norman, Saxon-German, and Latin.

It took me some head-scratching to figure out what tzeghen was. I had to say it out loud before I realized it was goats:

"...morning gift, that applies to/is a portion of all horses, cattle, goats and pigs..."