+- The Voynich Ninja (https://www.voynich.ninja)
+-- Forum: Voynich Research (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-27.html)
+--- Forum: News (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-25.html)
+--- Thread: [Conference] Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube (/thread-4852.html)
Pages:
1
2
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube - N._N. - 11-08-2025
There is of course no binary formal-casual, but a continuum as you said, and I agree that it is hard to judge how different one scribe's handwriting might be depending on circumstances. However, from experience with historical documents, I am quite positive that it was common for anyone writing regularly (i. e. professional scribes, scholars etc.) to have different modes which may influence the particular elements you are looking at here. For example, the closed x looks like something you might avoid when writing something more formal.
I would also not expect these kind of everyday legal documents we see on top of the list to be particularly formal in style, since they were not really meant to be read often or displayed for representative purposes. In most cases, they would just disappear in some ledger, maybe used once again (on repayment) unless there are legal issues. If the document is legible, the visuals are of minor importance.
Of the Top 10, the two from Fulda are a receipt for payment and a loan, three more Hessian documents are sales proceedings, the fourth is a debt obligation. Which raises the question: Is there actually a cluster from Hesse where this script was particularly common, or just a cluster of digitized manuscripts of this kind where the script is common that happend to be available from Hessian archives (while it was actually used in most of southern Germany, for example)? In any way, my point is: I think the list could benefit from a more detailed category distinguishing what kind of manuscript it is. But I fully understand how much work that would be.
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube - LisaFaginDavis - 11-08-2025
This kind of analysis is really important, but you always need to keep in mind that around 95% of manuscripts didn't survive the Middle Ages intact, and of those that did, only a very small number have been catalogued and an even smaller number have been digitized. There is simply no way to ensure that you've seen EVERYTHING - but what you've already done is extremely useful.
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube - Bluetoes101 - 11-08-2025
On dates of matches, it intrigues me how closely some of the best are, and how people can show examples of "a" from this "10 year period" and "a" from another.
Is it that people would tend to be a scribe only for a period of time, or would people change their writing to be more "fashionable" to meet expectations of clients?
Also thank you very much Koen for uploading!
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube - Koen G - 11-08-2025
I wondered the same, Bluetoes. Again, I think there is no definitive answer. It might perhaps be useful to think of a certain style to be "on its way out" eventually. You may still have some older scribes who write like they're used to, but others will have learned differently or adapted. Either way, handwriting styles are best thought of as belonging to a long period of time. But at some point you can say "now it becomes rare".
Going by our current samples, the peak of the style appears to coincide with the radiocarbon dating period. And perhaps earlier too, but I didn't check many earlier documents. So we have a period of half a century or more, that seriously tapers as we move into the second half of the 15th century.
Again, though, I'd be more than okay with any additional samples changing our view on location and time.
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube - ReneZ - 11-08-2025
What a surprise to find mention of Gross-Umstadt. That used to be right in my backyard.
A pity, because if I was still in that area I could have done something with such a concrete example.
On another note, I am not too worried about some geographical separation between the handwriting and the castle. While they may have been made contemporaneously, there is quite a good chance that they are not from the same person.
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube - Bluetoes101 - 11-08-2025
I've always found writing styles hard to think of as like dresses or suits, however the further you go back the more prominent writing is, and I guess "fashions" were likely a thing with one being "on its way out" and the next being the "cool" new way.
Once I am done with something else I'd like to check a medical work I posted a while back with countless hands, it will likely not be an official addition, but it will be interesting if any writers show the traits, or if not (I suspect most likely), as it probably contains writing from half the literate people in England at the time!