The Voynich Ninja

I've been thinking a lot about how we can collectively determine a date range for the Zodiac figures' dress. In another thread I tried to focus on one figure, but soon realized that this wouldn't be the best approach; it leaves too many items open to interpretation. However, while researching my previous blog post, I read something which might be more useful. Apparently sleeves were very much a locus for fashion evolution during the Middle Ages. 

Fortune has it that we have two very marked types of sleeves in the VM: wide, dagged ones for women and baggy sleeves for the Archer. If we were to collect examples of each and map the date points, it should be possible to create some kind of heat map for both. On the museum's note about the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, it says that "Bagpipe sleeves seen in the tapestry went out of fashion around 1430." This provides a hypothetical upper limit for the male dress, which may or may not be challenged by our exercise.

EDIT: I'll make a separate thread for the female dress.

I'll keep the list updated here.

MEN:

• Basel Universitätsbibliothek A II 4, Freiburg, 1400, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
  
• Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal Ms-3480, France, 1400-1425, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal Ms-5193 réserve, Paris, 1411, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal Ms-664 réserve, Paris, 1411, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• BL Add MS 18850 (Bedford Hours), Paris, 1423, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• BL Add MS 11575, Bruges, 1400-1425, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• BL Harley 4431, Paris, 1410-1414,  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• BL King's 5, Northern Netherlands, 1405, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• BL Royal 45, England, ca. 1400, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• BL Royal 20 B XX, Paris, 1400-1425, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• BNF MS Fr. 23279, Paris, 1410, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• BNF MS Fr. 12420, Paris, 1403, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.=
  
• BNF MS Fr. 616, Paris, 1405-1409, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• BNF MS Fr. 9333, Northern Italy, 1380-1399, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• BSB Clm 8201, Bavaria, 1414, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Cod. Pal. germ. 471, Nürnberg, 1425-1431, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
  
• Cod. Pal. germ. 794, Schwaben, 1415, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Cotton MS Nero A X/2 (Gawain), England, 1400-1410, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Genève Ms. fr. 57, France, 1402, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Houghton Typ 127, France, 1430, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.=
  
• Huntington mssEL 26 C 9, England, 1400-1410, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Morgan MS M.396, Northeastern France, 1425-1430, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Morgan MS M.453, Paris, 1425-1430, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Morgan MS M.245, Paris, 1405, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• ÖNB Cod. Ser. n. 2644, North Italy, 1380-1399, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
  
• Pal. Lat. 1806, Augsburg, 1400-1430 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Pal. Lat. 1726, Heidelberg, 1423, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Reg. Lat. 1290, Northern Italy, 1420, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Trinity R 15 21, England, 1408, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Werkstatt von 1418, Haguenau (Alsace), 1418 ca., many manuscripts.
  
• Werkstatt Diebold Lauber, Haguenau (Alsace), 1450 ca., many manuscripts.
  

• Aquila tower frescos, North Italy, 1400 ca., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
  
• Black Palace frescos, Coredo (Trentino), 1460 ca., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
  
• Castello della Manta frescos, North-West Italy, 1410-1420, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, South Netherlands, 1425-1430, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Fra Angelico, Italy, 1430-1437, various paintings from this period.
  
• Ortenberg altarpiece, Middle Rhineland, 1420, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Van Eyck's Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, Flanders/Burgundy, 1435, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
  
  

For what it's worth, I posted a map (with dates) of wide-sleeve/narrow-wrist tunics in July 2017.

I've discovered more since then and don't have time at the moment to add the new ones to the map, but here's a link to the old map which has at least some of the information (and arrows to show the origins of the images):

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Edit [addition]: I took a look at the current state of my map and I had added three more tunics, so today I squeezed in one more. There are still three that really should be on the map, but it's difficult to find space without reorganizing the whole thing. Anyway, it does show some patterns that might be of interest, so I uploaded Version 1.2.

Thanks, JKP! If I'm not mistaken, all examples where the sleeves are clearly baggy and narrow at the wrist fall between 1400-1430. I think you got a antiquated dating for the Devonshire tapestry, the museum now says made 1425-1430.

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It might have been a old estimate or a mistake on my part, but I will update it next time I update the map (don't know when that will be). Thanks.


I notice when I go back to manuscripts I haven't seen for a couple of years that they have sometimes changed the date estimates. Not surprising, since posting them on the Web allows many specialists to look at them and to provide feedback to the repositories.

Yes, the date range does seem fairly narrow and interestingly happens to agree with the radio-carbon dating and also with the majority of the zodiac images. It's pretty consistent.

I don't look for things based on date. I simply gather. Then later I find out what I have and hope there will be patterns. I haven't looked for tunics as actively as other things, and I don't have many compared to zodiacs and script samples, but it's enough to get a preliminary feel for where they happen to be and a rough date range.

Alright so I'll start proposing data points, adding what I can derive from your map and some examples I had set aside myself.

MEN:

• Morgan MS M.396, Northeastern France, 1425-1430, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Morgan MS M.453, Paris, 1425-1430, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Morgan MS M.245, Paris, 1405, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Harley 4431, Paris, 1410-1414,  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, South Netherlands, 1425-1430, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Pal. Lat. 1806, Augsburg, 1400-1430 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Ms-5193 réserve, Paris, 1411, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
  
• BnF, MS Fr. 23279, Paris, 1410, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
• BNF, MS Fr. 12420, Paris, 1403, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.=
  
• BNF, MS Fr. 616, Paris, 1407, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  

Obviously incomplete - which ones from your set am I missing? I just did a rudimentary sort by holding library. Also it looks like I fell into a BNF pool so examples from other regions must still be provided.

The evolution of Phebus MSS is quite interesting. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was made in 1390, Toulouse under Phebus' supervision. No baggy sleeves, most of the men have their sleeves rolled up. Then 17 years later the manuscript is copied in Paris (BNF 616) only now all men are baggy-sleeved dandies.

A question for the statistics-savvy: how do you represent data that's formatted differently? For example, some manuscripts are dated to 1405. In this case, assigning it to "1400-1410" would actually chuck out information. And on the other hand, you get manuscripts dated 1400-1430. How do you combine those two types of dates visually? Perhaps take the intermediate date for date ranges?

The dates on my map are rough, as there is so little space for text.

In my database I try to be as accurate as possible. I use "before 1400" "between 1400 and 1420", "c. 1403 to c. 1407", etc.

I can't check my shelf marks against your list until after work, but I will do so as soon as possible.


Yes!! the Phebus hunting illustrations are very interesting fashion-wise when one looks at the different versions over time.

I did notice, after I had a number of tunics collected, that men who wielded spears, axes, bows, etc., represented a high proportion of the tunics that were similar to the VMS characters, and that about a quarter of the men in the wide-sleeve/narrow-wrist tunics had goatees (although usually longer than the VMS bowman).

We'll leave this thread going for a while so no hurry. I hope other members will contribute as well so we have more chance of gathering a variety of sources.

I will edit my first post to gather the complete list each time.

I think Marco made mention of Italian frescos some times, and there's some great examples there as well. For example, Castello della Manta, Saluzzo, 1411-1416. Note the guy on the left, and the one on the right with red sleeves. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(05-10-2018, 01:38 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The evolution of Phebus MSS is quite interesting. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was made in 1390, Toulouse under Phebus' supervision. No baggy sleeves, most of the men have their sleeves rolled up. Then 17 years later the manuscript is copied in Paris (BNF 616) only now all men are baggy-sleeved dandies.

BNF 616 may be earlier... unfortunately many manuscripts on the gallica.bnf.fr website are not precisely dated. Sometimes more information can be found on the archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr website, not much.

BNF Fr. 616 - Le livre de la chasse, Gaston Phébus, 14th-15th century (!), shows many baggy sleeves:
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EDIT: Where did you find the 1407 date?

BNF Smith-Lesouëf 70 - Pierre Choinet, Le livre des trois âges (late 15th century)
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Hunting scene, no baggy sleeves

Compost et kalendrier des bergers (1457)
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Archer holding crossbow, no baggy sleeves

Later on (when, I don't know) men's pourpoint fashion seemingly went back to wide sleeves but in a different style, with shoulder pads:

BNF Fr. 2695 - René I d'Anjou, Traité de la forme et devis comme on peut faire les tournois (ca. 1462-1465).
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