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+--- Thread: Comparison with BL ms Ashmole 399 (/thread-1873.html)
Comparison with BL ms Ashmole 399 - MarcoP - 23-04-2017
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a medical miscellany written in England at the end of the 13th century.
Several images can be paralleled with Voynich illustrations, in particular in the so-called “balneological” section.
A few examples:
- General page layout (K)
- Patients being cured (B,C)
- Internal organs represented as tubes (images I, J, K)
- Naked people inside containers – actually fetuses in the womb (images G, L)
- A complex, unfinished, astrological diagram (img H)
I don't believe the balneo "nymphs" can be fetuses, but the possibility that the section is about procreation has been put forward several times. I think there could be a connection, even if not an identity.
Second attachment.
RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399 - -JKP- - 23-04-2017
I've looked at this manuscript before. I was particularly interested in the one you've marked H (next to the VMS rosettes folio) and was wishing they had completed it. But I don't know if I went through the whole manuscript because I hadn't noted as many similarities as you have illustrated here.
Individually, these might seem like coincidences, but stacked up one after the other, there certainly is a resemblance.
The uterus pictures are especially interesting. I had never thought to associate the rounded arcs over the nymphs' heads with the inside of a uterus, even though some of the bottom tubes looked a bit like the birth canal. Put alongside these pictures, however, the contours are very similar.
RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399 - MarcoP - 24-04-2017
(23-04-2017, 06:41 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Individually, these might seem like coincidences, but stacked up one after the other, there certainly is a resemblance.
The uterus pictures are especially interesting. I had never thought to associate the rounded arcs over the nymphs' heads with the inside of a uterus, even though some of the bottom tubes looked a bit like the birth canal. Put alongside these pictures, however, the contours are very similar.
Thank you for your comments, JKP.
Personally I find detail K (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) particularly interesting. Some of the drawings are quite difficult to interpret.
With the help of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ("Motherhood, Religion, and Society in Medieval Europe, 400–1400" edited by Dr Conrad Leyser, Dr Lesley Smith), I managed to read a small passage from the top of the second column of the left page (near the blue diamond):
Et si mulier velit impregnari, desiccat testiculos verris, et inde faciet pulverem et bibat in vino post purgationem menstruorum, et tunc coheat cum viro et poterit concipere.
"If a woman wants to be pregnant, dry the testicles of a swine, make a powder of it and let her drink it with wine after the ending of menstruation; then she can lay with a man and will conceive".
It seems interesting that these page are about woman fertility and pregnancy: I have seen several references to fetuses and birth in both pages. From the illustrations, it wasn't at all clear to me that the subject would have been birth in particular.
Marraccini referred to menstruation in her recent Oxford speech and I am sure the subject of woman fertility has been often mentioned in relation with the balneological section, as well as the "nymphs in cylinder" in the first zodiac wheels. I will have to read more of what others have written on the subject.
As always, the similarities are interesting, but the differences too. The differences are another subject about which I hope to be able to comment in the future.
RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399 - Emma May Smith - 24-04-2017
(24-04-2017, 05:46 PM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Marraccini referred to menstruation in her recent Oxford speech and I am sure the subject of woman fertility has been often mentioned in relation with the balneological section, as well as the "nymphs in cylinder" in the first zodiac wheels. I will have to read more of what others have written on the subject.
Hey, this was my answer in the "State of the Voynich 2016" thread concerning the topic of quire 13: "Bathing, maybe with a focus on women's reproductive health." I want priority!
(Though I think there's something solipsistic that two young women studying the Voynich manuscript both think it is about women's reproduction.)
RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399 - bi3mw - 24-04-2017
Does the image [A] show an urinal ( matula ) ? I cannot find such a representation anywhere else. I think the usual representation looks like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399 - davidjackson - 24-04-2017
Image A is clearly a drain hole from the tank, which connects to a pipe on the reverse folio - I wrote it up somewhere on the forum. The two sides are connected by the flow of water.
Of course, what the water represents is anyone's guess.
RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399 - ReneZ - 25-04-2017
(24-04-2017, 06:51 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hey, this was my answer in the "State of the Voynich 2016" thread concerning the topic of quire 13: "Bathing, maybe with a focus on women's reproductive health." I want priority!
Are you sure?
Another (possibly) young woman wrote the following, 40 years ago:
Quote:It seems strange to me, also, that so many students have become obsessively preoccupied with gynecological or sexual interpretations of the text.
(D'Imperio, p.36).
Of the "so many" she quotes one, the work of Leonell Strong represented in the analysis of Betty McCaig:
Quote:Strong's efforts produced text representing "an extremely candid discussion of woman's ailments and practical matters of the conjugal bed - you might call it a sixteenth century equivalent of the Kinsey Report". He identified an herbal contraceptive among its recipes, and ran a laboratory experiment to test the effectiveness of the prescription for that purpose."
RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399 - MarcoP - 25-04-2017
(24-04-2017, 08:29 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Image A is clearly a drain hole from the tank, which connects to a pipe on the reverse folio - I wrote it up somewhere on the forum. The two sides are connected by the flow of water.
Of course, what the water represents is anyone's guess.
I agree that this is the correct interpretation and the intended meaning: context makes this clear. Apparently, the illustrator got the perspective wrong and represented the top rim of the hole instead of the bottom one (which would be correct for the hollow shape of a hole).
(24-04-2017, 07:44 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Does the image [A] show an urinal ( matula ) ? I cannot find such a representation anywhere else. I think the usual representation looks like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Yes, the BL description says "urinoscopy". The shape of the container doesn't seem strange to me. Of course, the fact that the physician has dropped the container is peculiar! I guess the scene would be much clearer if we had access to the text it illustrates.
![[Image: 344px-Konstantinderafrikaner.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/Konstantinderafrikaner.jpg/344px-Konstantinderafrikaner.jpg)
RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399 - MarcoP - 25-04-2017
(25-04-2017, 08:23 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(24-04-2017, 06:51 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hey, this was my answer in the "State of the Voynich 2016" thread concerning the topic of quire 13: "Bathing, maybe with a focus on women's reproductive health." I want priority!
Are you sure?
Another (possibly) young woman wrote the following, 40 years ago:
Quote:It seems strange to me, also, that so many students have become obsessively preoccupied with gynecological or sexual interpretations of the text.
(D'Imperio, p.36).
Thank you, Rene! The next sentence from D'Imperio is this one:
Mary D` Imperio Wrote:It seems strange to me, also, that so many students have become obsessively preoccupied with gynecological or sexual interpretations of the text. The presence of the scattering of quite unexceptionable matronly little nude figures on a small proportion of folios seems to me an entirely insufficient justification for this obsession.
It seems that Mary has let herself go to a little trolling here. The claim that the “matronly little figures” are unexceptional should be supported by evidence, which she doesn't provide. The manuscript contains several hundreds illustrations of naked women. This is exceptional and must have an explanation. Instead of dismissing the female figures as unexceptional, D'Imperio should have provided alternative explanations, since she disagrees with the gynecological hypothesis.
What is even more unlike her usual style is the gross slip into irrationality, when, instead of discussing evidence and ideas, she projects pathological feelings (“obsessive preoccupation”) onto other researchers. Pure trolling
RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399 - ReneZ - 25-04-2017
Indeed Marco. It's clearly a very personal note from her, and we can only guess what (besides Strong's work) drove her exasperation.
I don't know to what extent Emma was writing 'tongue-in-cheek' (I kind of expect so) but it is clear that priority goes way back in time to who knows when.
There's also clearly no dividing line (male/female) in the opinions on this topic.