The Voynich Ninja

My apologies if this news was posted on the forum at the time, but as I came across it in my own Middle English research, I also want to share it with everyone else on the forum. Regardless of whether there is any merit to my own Middle English theory or not, I hope that this convenient access to so many medieval manuscripts may be valuable and useful for everyone with an interest in Voynich research and medieval manuscripts.

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Geoffrey

You just have to be aware of the scope of what has been scanned so far. 41 books is certainly something.
I know monasteries that have thousands of old books and have just started scanning.
That's 40 just a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg.
We won't live to see a good overview until then. I don't even want to talk about privately owned books.
We have to work with what we have, and sometimes you have to get out of the library.

Good science takes place in the open.
Indiana Jones

I would like to post a couple screenshots, one of a page and one a closeup of a passage on the page for a better view of the handwriting style of the MS.

I want to explain in advance that what I am posting here actually constitutes evidence against my Middle English / Yorkist English theory of the Voynich MS. It represents the greatest difficulty and challenge that my theory needs to be able to explain, according to palaeographers who study the handwriting styles of medieval manuscripts.

Source: British Library digitisation and online publication of Middle English manuscripts
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For these images are of the opening dedication page of Edward, 2nd Duke of York's The Master of Game, dedicated to Henry, Prince of Wales (soon to be Henry V). I do not know the exact date of the MS, but it is described as "first half of the 15th century". Please note that this copy was not at all necessarily physically written by anyone personally connected with the author/translator, Edward, 2nd Duke of York.

But one does get a striking illustration here of an English handwriting style of this period. I understand that this style is called Anglicana. Personally I find it very difficult to read. It is understandable why palaeographers would doubt an English origin of the Voynich MS, since the handwriting style and letterforms of the Voynich script clearly look nothing like the English style represented in the attached images. 

This is why my theory argues that one or more Continental scribes, perhaps from Spain or Castile or Navarre or Aragon, must have joined Edward's retinue in Aquitaine or Gascony while he was stationed there in 1401-1403 as the Lieutenant of the Duchy of Aquitaine with dominion over both territories. It is he or they who must have written. and/or trained other scribes to have written, the Voynich MS text at Edward's behest at a slightly later date, 1404-1406, when Edward was back in England or Wales. This aspect of my theory is necessary because otherwise it is not possible to explain the clear and obvious discrepancy between a typical English handwriting style as evident in the attached images vs. the more Continental style evident in the Voynich MS script.

I have also attached the same page of text in the printed 1909 version of this book, to aid readers in making sense of the difficult handwriting style. (Note: The Middle English original text was partially modernized in the 1909 edition, but at the same time the editors strove to retain as much of the original "flavour" of the language as possible.)

Geoffrey

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