(21-01-2026, 09:05 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (20-01-2026, 11:57 PM)MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.@ nablator, That's a very helpful thread. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I am also now inclined to see it as commonly done in medieval texts, but in the VM (and in other books) may have its own meaning
I agree with this part, and lately I've found this the most useful way of thinking about most aspects of the manuscript. More often than not, something the Voynich scribes or artists do has clear parallels in medieval customs, but the Voynich does its own thing with it. This is very frequent in discussions of the imagery, but also things like script and layout.
Both sides of that coin are worth looking out for. How does it depend on traditional formats, and how does it change them?
Thanking you again for the sources provided, I spend some time going over the 75 plants in the three Facebook pdfs, searching in the google for their medicinal benefits or harms, as perceived in medieval times.
It is impossible to report the findings, because of the sheer amount of information one could fine (aided by google AI, which I think offers researchable resources like a librarian, but from experience, NEVER trust the first report it provides, but go directly to the deep dive. You will find at times, amusingly, that the deeper search immediately contradicts the first report it gives! But the deeper search can be helpful, just as a way of getting a sense of things and always check with the sources it links ….).
In any case, the exploration of the medicinal value of these plants is complicated by and conditional on the accuracy of the identifications, but if the identifications are correct, you will be amazed at what you will find!
At times all the seemingly innocent and nice-looking plants are found to be highly toxic and could be used as poison! In a way, I thought, no wonder this thing is secretive, it can almost serve as offering recipes for poisons! But there are also some positive and mixed value cases, and like any medicine you find today, benefits come with side effects. An important recurring issue was the risks of misidentification, when a plant that was considered great, if misidentified, could prove deadly. Another trend was about how the doctrine of signatures played a role in the beliefs held. I did not narrow down the search to a particular century but researched for the medieval times. I did not even read everything but glanced through the results.
My purpose was just to get a sense of what those plants identified by Aga Tentakulus, if correct, would have been used for. The overall impression was what I had concluded that the VM plant section was a wide-range of plants that could not be regarded as targeting only one specific need (such as pregnancy/fertility). But, there were many with such benefits or harms for fertility and pregnancy.
Just as example, consider these (really does not matter what the plant was) from google search:
“In medieval times, Tamus communis (now often classified as Dioscorea communis and commonly known as Black Bryony) was a plant of extremes—a powerful external healer and a dangerous internal poison. It was famously called "Herbe aux femmes battues" (Herb for battered women) in French folk tradition because of its unparalleled ability to remove bruising …”
“In medieval times, Helleborus (primarily Helleborus niger, the Christmas Rose, and Helleborus viridis, Green Hellebore) was a plant of extremes, feared as a lethal poison but revered as a potent "kill or cure" remedy. It was deeply rooted in humoral theory, particularly for treating conditions thought to be caused by an excess of "black bile".”
I still think that those two You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. and f65v/66r plants with the listed texts must be something the author was trying to build on. Nablator’s helpful link to the discussion on the column of letters has made me inclined to think there is some kind of poetic writing going on, but I am not sure at all, and as Koen G. has rightly pointed out, just because a similar formatting appears in the VM, it does not mean it is done in the same way done elsewhere. (I spent some time learning more about geomantic figures that I will try to share later, if I find it relevant. It is actually interesting, and I think that You are not allowed to view links.
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I don’t want to spend more time on the plant section at this point, but I think Aga Tentakulus and all the efforts ReneZ, Koen G., and others are making in organizing and updating the plants can be very helpful, but it can be even more helpful with attention to their medicinal values or harms. But that would require a LOT of work, and given the uncertainties of identifications, may not be an optimally reliable goal to achieve, even though I can see many scholars have done much deeper research than the surface I have barely scratched!
I just want to end this post with a few comments about the doctrine of signatures.
I understand that on this forum itself and elsewhere, a lot of discussion and debate have taken place about the so-called “doctrine of signatures” (for a general idea about the doctrine see You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.). Some believe it is a helpful idea, others find it is not. I don’t think the doctrine has to be an overarching explanation for the plant illustrations, but for some it may be helpful. And I strongly believe, as I said before, that the text of the plants can be practically meaningful for the plants, even if the images are not realistic due to chains of copying.
As you know better than I could do, the doctrine of signatures is basically the notion that in medieval times, or earlier, it was believed that the visual resemblances of plant (or even animal) features to human body parts indicated the nature’s (perhaps even God’s) way of showing their medicinal properties, both in terms of benefits or harms.
Even today some enthusiasts are still toying with the idea for the fun of it, or to warn about the dangers of such a belief previously held (i.e., cut the carrot and the cross-section looks like an eye, so it is good for the eye …!). The plants could have been from any region of the world known then to Europe, passed on through books produced locally or translated or illustrated from other languages.
The “doctrine of signatures” was formalized as such by Böhme and Paracelsus later on, but the idea behind the doctrine cannot be said to have originated from them. It could have been passed on and inspiring them instead, by way of sources from other cultural sources. The Voynich manuscript itself may have been an inspiration for them directly or not, since it may have been available and even used after mid 1400s.
One does not have to consult another source to see that in the VM manuscript itself a few plant features are depicted in a way that may convey the doctrine of signatures.
Those living at that time would have likely not regarded these images as enigmatic, and I am not sure even those in later centuries (say in 1600s) finding the (incomplete) book enigmatic were pointing to the plants as being enigmatic. They may have been more puzzled about the text than the illustrations at that later time, since even 150 years can make an old text foreign to later readers.
I am not sure even if people living in the 1300s or 1400s would have found these plant pictures enigmatic. They seem all like fantastic depictions of plants you can find in other herbal books of the period, before or after, many of which you have yourself found and discussed extensively (for example see You are not allowed to view links.
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