The Voynich Ninja

The Liber Trotula in the Openbare Bibliotheek Brugge is only a 15th century interpretation. Pictorial similarities between Trotula and the VMS could therefore be justified by the fact that they were produced at about the same time and could partly deal with the same topic "bathing". Whether and if so, how far an original, female authorship "shines through" in both cases is an open question.

edit: Does anyone know of an illustrated, 12th century manuscript of the Trotula ?

Very much so - it is an open question. What are we looking for?

How about this? There are original versions of works by Christine de Pizan. And there are subsequent versions of her books by male scribes / authors(?). Are there reputed to be any potential 'gender' differences found here? 

The probability of female authorship obviously was restricted. Yet the Pizan publication of 1405 is so close to where the VMs parchment dates start - and from there we have another 30 plus years. It would seem that the possibility of female authorship would be somewhat advantaged during the same time as which the VMs was most probably created. Just saying.

I've long felt that the VMs 'green' bathers had a certain similarity to the bathing Muses in Pizan's 'Book of the Queen'. Of course it is quite a trick to draw nine women in a pool and then disguise it. If you draw nine bathing Muses, there they are. If you want them to be seen, no problem. But it you want them to be hidden and escape notice, what can you do? Make more groups of bathers with differing numbers of women per group. This works so well that the significance of the number nine almost disappears. How is the significance recovered? Through the requirement of pairing - the Biblical law of Deuteronomy. Ask the ladies in the pool of sixteen for nine volunteers to move to the left. Please raise your hands to mark the separation.

(08-11-2021, 12:29 AM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I've long felt that the VMs 'green' bathers had a certain similarity to the bathing Muses in Pizan's 'Book of the Queen'.

Do you mean the depiction of the muses in Harley MS 4431, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ? What I find remarkable is that although the women are depicted naked, certain positive qualities are attributed to them in their appearance. In an edition of the text it says:
....
What you will hear me describe:
There I saw nine ladies who had come.
Bathing naked
In the Fountain of Truth
They looked like they had a lot of dignity,
Great prestige and great sense.
I would have liked so much to have learned and discovered
Who they were;....

Perhaps the attribution of these qualities to nude bathers is more to be expected from a woman than from a man ? I'm not sure.
What is provable is that the whole scene is depicted completely differently in the work of a male author and some years later ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ). Here the muses stand dressed in front of the fountain ( thanks R. Sale for the link in another thread ).

I don't know if the qualities described above also apply to "the bathers" in the VMS, but at least they exude a certain naturalness in their presentation.

In our century I don't think anyone dares question this idea that the VMS is a work of women. It is very difficult to go against the current and it can end up succeeding. In the last century no one thought of that. We are a product of history, as Gadamer said.

Without ruling it out entirely, I think the likelihood that the VM is a book written by women for women is minimal. This idea, naturally promoted today by women, is based on the fact that the VM is a women's health book. I don't see that anywhere. I only see a book of herbs and astrology. But not just me. A great expert in iconology like Erwin Panofsky also did not see anything in the book related to biology.

(08-11-2021, 04:33 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In our century I don't think anyone dares question this idea that the VMS is a work of women. 

What? I've been questioning this idea this entire thread. It is possible, but not necessarily more likely than female involvement in any other medieval work. 

I do think it is true that one's likelihood of assuming female authorship corresponds to a preferred liereal (or "physical") reading of Q13. But this just one of the possible views.

(08-11-2021, 04:33 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In our century I don't think anyone dares question this idea that the VMS is a work of women

I would not say that. As I already noted in my opening post, I am skeptical about this thesis myself. But that doesn't mean that you can't take the opposite position to get to the bottom of the matter

(08-11-2021, 04:33 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Without ruling it out entirely, I think the likelihood that the VM is a book written by women for women is minimal. This idea, naturally promoted today by women,...

I am not sure if this thesis is mainly held by women. It is at least clear that also women can reject this thesis completely. See for example Michelle's post:

Quote:... I remain completely and utterly unconvinced that the Voynich was written by a woman or group of women.  If anything, l lean the opposite way - that the Voynich was written and illustrated by men who produced it as a reflection of their place of societal power over women...

(06-11-2021, 01:33 PM)MichelleL11 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(06-11-2021, 11:54 AM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Here is a blog post by Monica Valentinelli titled "Why I Believe the Voynich Manuscript was Created by a Woman". As far as can be seen, she bases her thesis on social circumstances in the Italian Renaissance (?).

I don't think the author(s) of the Voynich were women, because I have my own specific ideas about who the author(s) were.

However setting my own authorship theory aside I suppose one can ask the question as to what percentage of manuscripts from that time were written by women? And what percentage of manuscripts of that kind were written by women at that time? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I suspect it was quite rare for manuscripts of that kind to be written by women at that time. This, of course, does not make it impossible that it was written by women, just that without very good reasons to believe it was written by women, it is unlikely.

(08-11-2021, 05:14 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(08-11-2021, 04:33 PM)Antonio García Jiménez Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In our century I don't think anyone dares question this idea that the VMS is a work of women. 

What? I've been questioning this idea this entire thread. It is possible, but not necessarily more likely than female involvement in any other medieval work. 

I may be mistaken, but it could be that Antonio, not being a native speaker of English, meant to say "ask this question"/"put forward this idea" rather than "question this idea".

(08-11-2021, 05:59 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.However setting my own authorship theory aside I suppose one can ask the question as to what percentage of manuscripts from that time were written by women? 

As already mentioned, In Bruges in 1480 a surprising 25% of the guild of book illuminators were women. One could therefore speculate that a number of roughly the same magnitude were employed as scribes in the workshops. This at least does not seem unrealistic.

Of course, this says nothing about a possible female authorship.

Here is a link to a database of female scribes before 1500 AD. There were quite a few:

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