The Voynich Ninja

@RobGea: Now you've deleted your reference to the gasteroenterologist. Thereby the personal union would be quite favorable, when bad articles hit your stomach, you don't have to look for long for medical help

The numerous illegitimate children of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, would also seem to contradict the proposed thesis.

Apparently just another example of insufficient research and over-hyped conclusions.

Besides the shortcomings mentioned by @davidjackson, there are other things I noticed.


About the readability of the text:

Quote:It was a huge effort to buy the parchment and prepare it, to procure ink and colors, to write the text in the small, beautiful - though largely illegible to us today - script, to draw the pictures and color them.

Quote:It is a secret script, which must be deciphered. This is partially successful, but without being able to read a coherent content.

According to general knowledge, I would say that the text of the VMS has not been deciphered to date. With which reason the authors claim that the VMS is partially readable remains open.


About the authors:

Quote:It is a book written by bastards for bastards, that is, illegitimate offspring begotten by nobles.

Quote:The authors were probably a group from the growing class of bastards.

How should I imagine this group ? As far as I know, there were no "interest groups" of bastards. Did the authors meet by chance ? ( "Hey we are bastards, let's do something." )


About bathing scenes:

Quote:We know bathing scenes from the late Middle Ages and early modern times. Baths are always depicted with people talking, eating and drinking.

I know a lot of medieval bath scenes in which neither eating nor drinking takes place. This is a strange statement for art historians.

(15-12-2021, 02:00 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Did the authors meet by chance ? ( "Hey we are bastards, let's do something." )

And so the first political party was formed! 

It is also interesting to note that there were different categories of bastards. C. Dale Brittain (professor of medieval history) distinguishes four different categories. So there were not the bastards as Carl-Krüsi and Eggenberger suggest. One can assume that they were treated differently. So it was by no means a group with equal difficulties.

Quote:There were at least four different categories of illegitimate children in medieval law.  A manzer, a term with Hebrew roots, was a child born to a prostitute or sometimes to an incestuous union, that is a child whose parents' relationship was considered morally wrong.  A nothus, a word with Greek roots, was the child of a married woman due to an adulterous affair, also morally wrong.  A spurius was the child of a couple who could not have been married, such as a citizen and a non-citizen (in those cities that regulated who citizens could marry), or a well-born man and a slave in late antiquity, or a married man and a concubine.  A naturalis was the offspring of a couple who could have married and indeed might do so in the future; this last category was treated fairly indulgently, the product of "young love" that got carried away.

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I don't know if that was actually codified anywhere. I would be surprised is manzer was much used, as it is a legal term in the Torah, not Christian law, although a quick search shows certain people tarred with the name.
In any case, this would be the "middle" middle ages, not the late middle ages (VM time).
In the whole of the Middle Ages, the concept of bastard was really far more linked to the social status of the mother than any real concept of being conceived out of wedlock. If the mother was of superior social status, the child would be far more easily accepted into noble families than if the mother was of lower status.
If the paterfamilias had it off with the scullery maid, then any resulting child was unlikely to be accepted an heir by the family. But if the mother was of another noble family, then not much of a problem.
William the Conqueror was known as William the Bastard by his peers, this was due to (according to one theory I've seen) his mother being of low status. Despite that he was accepted by his father; and he worked twice as hard to prove himself.

To be fair to the theory, haven't we all at some point thought that the Voynich authors were bastards?

(I am surprised I am the first to make this bad joke)

(17-12-2021, 04:59 PM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.To be fair to the theory, haven't we all at some point thought that the Voynich authors were bastards?

Yes, you can be sure of that. Probably we only misunderstand the originators of this theory. Even art historians are not immune to simplifications. I mean after countless attempts of interpretation ....

(16-12-2021, 09:39 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If the mother was of superior social status, the child would be far more easily accepted into noble families than if the mother was of lower status.

In the case of extramarital relationships between noble fathers and socially also high-ranking mothers,  acknowledgment of the child does not always seem to have been a problem. There was even a so-called "bastard coat of arms" awarded to otherwise illegitimate offspring.  In the perception of the rest of the nobility, a descendant acknowledged in this way was usually not a reason for social disrespect, but on the contrary offered the possibility of the so-called "connubium". This is the term for the connection between social groups originally separated from each other through marriage, for example between nobles and socially ascended commoners (thus also acknowledged bastards).

Bastard coat of arms: coat of arms of Jeans de Dunois
( Note the bar in the middle, so-called "bend sinister")
[attachment=6101]

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