In the Voynich manuscript timeline appears a Petrus Beckx (No. 8 ). He is unknown to me so far and the search engine has also yielded nothing. Can someone explain me the connection with the VMS more exactly ? There is hardly anything said about him in the video.
Petrus Beckx was never really involved personally with the Voynich MS.
He was the general superior of the Society of Jesus, when their properties were seized by the newly formed Italian state, and a large collection of manuscripts (including the Voynich MS) was put into hiding.
To protect these manuscripts, they were labelled to be from his private library, while they really were not.
All the manuscripts that Voynich acquired in 1912 (of which the "Voynich MS" was just one), were from this so-called private library.
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I've always wondered about the name Beckx. It's not a common ending in any language. It does exist (I found some examples) but it occurred to me that the "x" might be a transitional symbol from the days of scribal abbreviations (especially at the ends of words) and hand typesetting and eventually typewriters.
When typesetting and especially typewriters were introduced, symbol substitutions were very common.
The -rum symbol was extremely common in medieval days as a suffix. It looks a bit like a modern 4 (with open top). And -rum is a common ending (including names). Is it possible that Beckx might originally (sometime back when scribal abbreviations were still used) have represented something like Beckrum or Beckum (the ending isn't necessarily -rum, I just used that as an example, but maybe the x is an abbreviation symbol)?
The names Beckum (and van Beckum), as examples, go back pretty far, whereas Beckx is rare and I can't remember if I found any prior to the 17th century back when I was hunting around (years ago).
Here's a painting family Beckx:
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Also, from helping someone with genealogy research, years back, I discovered it was sometimes traditional to add a letter to distinguish yourself from someone else. For example, John Smith moves to a town where there is another John Smith, so one of them adds a middle initial, like John T Smith. The middle T is not even a name, it's just an initial (I was able to confirm this through various records). This is something we barely comprehend in modern times, but a single letter in a name doesn't always stand for another name.
So... could there have been two Becks, way back in time, and one of them added an x to distinguish himself from the other?
Last names ending in ckx are extremely common in Flanders. Off the top of my head they are patronyms - son of "father's name". Luyckx means son of Lucas, Dierckx means son of Dirk, Vranckx means son of Frank and so on.
Koen, do you know how far back the "son of" tradition goes for the "x" symbol?
I'm curious about its origin. If I remember correctly, the affix in Persian is "y" (transliterated).
But usually patronymic affixes are longer. That's why I'm wondering how far back the "x" affix goes.
Here's what I had in mind when I was musing over the 'rum' symbol and the evolution of writing in the 17th and 18th centuries:
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This says "florum". The "r" part is a hump shape (the rounded "r"), followed by a shape that looks like an "x" (a crossed descender). Togther it makes the suffix 'rum'.
But if you lived in an age where scribal abbreviations were disappearing, and typesetting was taking over (some symbols were dropped and others had substitutions), it might seem natural (to someone familiar with typesetting), to substitute an "x" for the "-um" part (since the "r" part could be substituted with a normal letter). They retained certain symbols for a while (like the ubiquitous y abbreviation) but even those gradually disappeared.
Is Petrus Beckx identical with You are not allowed to view links.
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Quote:From April 1870 he (note: Anton Maria Anderledy) became the most important assistant to the aging General Petrus Beckx in Rome.
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I don`t know if Zichem ( birthplace of Beckx ) is in Flanders, if so this would support @Koen`s assumption.
It is very likely at that time that a Petrus (officially allowed name) went by Peter. Zichem is in Flanders near Scherpenheuvel, our most prominent pilgrimage site.
Pieter Jan Beckx is indeed the same person, and he was born in Zichem.
The chapel of Scherpenheuvel is very starry, quite reminiscent of some Voynich illustrations, but that is certainly a coincidence.
I was there as a kid, decades before I ever heard of the Voynich MS. Predestination at work
