Date of hypothetical medieval exemplar? [Thought experiment]

Date of hypothetical medieval exemplar? [Thought experiment] - Printable Version

+- The Voynich Ninja (https://www.voynich.ninja)
+-- Forum: Voynich Research (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-27.html)
+--- Forum: Voynich Talk (https://www.voynich.ninja/forum-6.html)
+--- Thread: Date of hypothetical medieval exemplar? [Thought experiment] (/thread-1711.html)

Date of hypothetical medieval exemplar? [Thought experiment] - Koen G - 25-03-2017

I believe the VM images ultimately go back to a number of pre-medieval sources. This thread is NOT about that. It's about what could have happened in between. For any material to be carried from let's say the first century to the fifteenth, it is reasonable to assume a number of intermediate steps. Copies, additions, reinterpretations, updates, translations, and perhaps in our case, transcriptions.

We know that the physical object has been created in the early 15th century. This is one of the few things we can build upon with relative certainty. But, as you well know, any contents of a medieval manuscript, whether it be text, image or both, are not unlikely to have existed in some form earlier. Copies were made, traditions formed, fragments from various sources combined, altered, commented upon, and so forth.

There are a number of images in the VM which are medieval without a doubt. The crossbow, the castle walls on the rosettes foldout... I would like to find out when these were added. For example, is it possible that the VM was copied from a 10th century work?

I will phrase this in a very concrete question:

What is the terminus post quem for a hypothetical medieval document from which the VM was copied?

For the imagery?
For the script?

Obviously things that pertain to the physical makeup of the manuscript are unlikely to help us much here, since they depend on the availability of materials to the 15th century scribes. But apart from that, which parts of the manuscript unambiguously point towards an early 15th century context?

I also have no idea when the script could have been given its current form. Are there indications that the script must have been a 15th century creation? For the record, this is not an idea I'd oppose, since to me this would mean that a source text was transcribed in the 15th century, which would be extremely interesting to know. But if this glyph set might as well have been a product of the 13th century, then that's interesting as well.

So has anyone studied any of this?

RE: Date of hypothetical medieval exemplar? [Thought experiment] - -JKP- - 25-03-2017

I've asked myself this many times, especially when hunting for text, shapes, styles, costumes, and colors.

I always work both backward and forward from about 1400. This is a date I chose before I knew anything about the carbon-dating results.

One thing I've noticed is the similarities somewhat diminish after about 1480 and greatly diminish when I pass the year 1530 or thereabouts. The kinds of pens they used, the style of writing, styles of painting and drawing, palettes, all these things noticeably changed once technology (even primitive technology) began to take hold.

When I work backward, the similarities in the text tend to peter out sometime in the mid- to early-1300s. Letter forms, abbreviation styles, spacing (and many other textual conventions), were quite different before this time. I find occasional earlier references, but they are not frequent. When I do find earlier references, they tend to be visual rather than related to the text, and they seem to be specific rather than fundamental.

Even the foliation and quire numbers are consistent with this. The quire numbers are transitional numerals that existed mainly in the late 1300s (they became popular for a brief while as roman numerals were falling out of use) and first half of the 15th century. One can still find them in a few later documents, but they are significantly less common. The foliation numbers are in the style that became popular in the very late 1300s and early 1400s (they coexisted for a while with the quire-number style) and eventually evolved into what we use today as the quire-number style fell out of use in the late 1400s and was almost gone by the early 1500s.

The plants are ahead of their time in some ways. The detail in which certain parts on certain plants are drawn is unusual. I think there are a number of "firsts" in the VMS as far as botanical illustrations are concerned. But the traditional themes are there, as well (heads in the roots, animal roots, vines twined around specific kinds of trees, etc.). By the early 1500s, it's clear that real botany was emerging and more effort put into accurate, naturalistic renderings. Once again the VMS imagery seems consistent with the radiocarbon dating estimate.

The same is true for the "zodiac" section, oddities like crossbows disappear by the mid- to late 1400s and zodiac images became much more standardized. Before 1300, similarities to the VMS start to peter out, as well.

Paint palettes become broader and more luxurious, on average, after about 1460 (particularly in France and Flanders). Most of them are more basic before 1300 and the VMS fits mostly with the more basic palettes. There are always exceptions—the Julia Anicia herbal illustrations are remarkable for their time and the painting style is more similar to later 15th-century illustrations than one would expect for something so early but the VMS, is pretty consistent with limited palettes that existed in most places from about the 12th to 15th centuries.

As far as iconography goes, most of the early iconography for many of the themes that are also represented in the VMS were "Roman style", not only in the characteristic colors and togas and decorative lines with dots that are so common in images copied from classic sources. And yet, even though some aspects of the VMS content appear to hark back to early times in many ways, the WAY they are drawn is characteristic for the 15th century. So... one might see a lot of diadems and turban-style head rolls, for example, but those wearing them are drawn like 15th-century characters. It's like walking into an SCA meeting where contemporary people are dressed up in medieval style. In the VMS, 15th-century characters appear (at least to me) to be used to express themes passed down from earlier times.

RE: Date of hypothetical medieval exemplar? [Thought experiment] - -JKP- - 26-03-2017

I grabbed an image that is very typical for the classical style of drawings common to astronomical and ecclesiastical documents leading up to the middle ages:

Filename: RomanStyle.jpg Size: 90.29 KB 26-03-2017, 07:29 AM

There's a certain way they are stylized, with the flowing robes, decorative lines with dots, and certain way of using outlines, that was very common at the time. Many of the Aratea manuscripts illustrate this style.

The other style that was common was the "celtic knot" theme with interwoven animals, dragons, flowers, etc.

Even though some of the VMS clothing accessories and a few of the decorative patterns (e.g., patterns with dots inside or with the squared tickmarks) are evocative of classical themes, the VMS does not seem very dependent on these two common iconographic styles in the way things are drawn or arranged. The only indication of "Celtic knot" influence is in the way the vine winds around and through the bark on the oak-like tree in the big-plants section and this may be coincidental since many vines, like Hedera helix, insert their rootlike tendrils into the bark of the tree.

So, once again, the subject matter appears to go back quite far, in some instances, but the way it is presented appears to be mostly late 14th c and 15th c (albeit in an individualistic way).

RE: Date of hypothetical medieval exemplar? [Thought experiment] - Koen G - 26-03-2017

JKP: I agree that there are a number of very recognizable styles to which the VM does clearly not belong. Any style which uses standard decorative motifs is off the table. You mention Celtic knot and Classical toga, and there's many more. Floral margins style, illuminated initial style, architectural frames style, geometrical borders style.

There is some semi-similarity between VMS patterns and the geometrical borders style, as we discussed in relation to the "angels cranking the celestial spheres" diagam, see this thread You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

But upon paying further attention to this style, I noticed it appeared in a lot of manuscripts and the patterns were mostly decorative, while in the VMS they are not used in such a way. This style is older than the VMS, the example we discussed was mid 14th century. But The resemblances might be superficial, and they mostly address the rosettes foldout.

What this teaches us is that the VMS is not the clear product of a standardized "school" of manuscript making. I assume this is something most people might agree on, since it applies also when the MS is seen as a highly individualistic creation.

When you say "the way it is presented appears to be mostly late 14th c and 15th c" what exactly do you mean? Are there specific manuscripts that are more similar to the VM than earlier ones?

RE: Date of hypothetical medieval exemplar? [Thought experiment] - -JKP- - 26-03-2017

(26-03-2017, 09:05 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

When you say "the way it is presented appears to be mostly late 14th c and 15th c" what exactly do you mean? Are there specific manuscripts that are more similar to the VM than earlier ones?

The custom of putting circles with text around a image is very old (I found a really old example recently, but it might take time to find it again), as was done with the VMS "zodiacs" but it wasn't common to do it until the medieval period and the custom was prevalent in the 15th century.

As for the VMS imagery, it bears many similarities to drawings that came out of the Dieboldt/Diepoldt Lauber studio in the mid-1400s. In fact, one of the lizardy animals (I blogged about this some months ago) in the "dead animal" pond is so similar, it's almost as though it was copied. The VMS drawing is not quite as expert as the studio drawing, but it's very much the same style and the VMS palette bears similarities to the palettes of some of the Lauber studio manuscripts as well. It was a secular scriptorium and it's possible it was started by one of Lauber's older relatives (possibly an uncle?). Lauber also gave handwriting lessons in the same general Gothic cursive style as the marginalia on the last page (not the same hand, but the same tradition).

I hunted up some pre-medieval drawings that are of interest because they have some of the same motifs as the VMS. It's from a book on sacraments (it describes the traditions) and the Merovingian and Roman influence are very evident in both the style and the colors. Some of the themes (animals in circles, animals nibbling on plants, pinwheel flowers, etc.) are echoed in the VMS even if the VMS is drawn very differently:

[Image: RamVRegLat316.jpg]

Note the critter with stripes, something more common to African animals than those in Europe.

Note how the roaring "lion" has no teeth or claws (a characteristic that's almost unique to the VMS) yet I'm pretty sure it's a lion. Usually they are drawn with teeth or claws or both.

Note also the zebra-critter's upside-down "heart" motif. It reminds me a bit of the mystery shape above the ram on the last page.

In this case the pinwheels are not juggling balls, as mentioned recently in my blog, they are flowers, and there are a number of them.

The tradition of showing birds and mammals (usually deer or antelopes, but sometimes other critters) nibbling on plants is very common in eastern Mediterranean and Persian manuscripts and not so common in European manuscripts. Often they are marginal images at the bottoms of the pages. Armenian calendars often have them.

So where did this come from, with so many eastern and Roman motifs?

It's Gallic, from the 9th century, Paris. It describes a mixture of Roman and Gallic sacramental traditions (Vatican Reg.lat.316). There's a bit of Celtic influence, as well, but the Roman traditions are the ones that are most evident (it has similarities with Aratea drawings, although it is even more stylized).

Style is an indicator of influence, but we can't rely on it to tell us a manuscript's geographical origin. It's only because we can read the text that we know it's Gallic. Even the age of the diagrams is sometimes difficult to pinpoint. If carbon dating is not possible, paleographic analysis of the text is frequently used to date a manuscript.

RE: Date of hypothetical medieval exemplar? [Thought experiment] - Diane - 26-03-2017

Koen

Quote:So has anyone studied any of this?

Yes. As you know. I've written about the chronological strata, and in a recent post dated the nearest exemplars fairly generously (1250-1350),
Just checked some of those posts... they've had several hundred readers each.. so I guess if you want to talk about it, the ice will have been broken.

-JKP -

Quote:Style is an indicator of influence, but we can't rely on it to tell us a manuscript's geographical origin.

About a manuscript - sure. But about imagery as such... we usually consider place of origin indicated by style: Chinese Madonna, a Russian Madonna, a Coptic Madonna or French Madonna or German Madonna are all fairly accepted stylistic distinctions.