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+--- Thread: f65R any identifications? (/thread-2127.html)
RE: f65R any identifications? - Mark Knowles - 17-12-2019
I would assume that one significant reason for an interest in this particular page is that unlike any other herbal page it has only a very small quality of text. In fact I would hazard that there is no page with less text on it than this in the Voynich. So one might guess that this text would have to contain the name of the plant expressed in some way; it is hard to imagine that this text contains no reference to the identity of the plant.
RE: f65R any identifications? - Aga Tentakulus - 18-12-2019
I think JKP's right about "filipendula vulgaris."
The possibility is over 90%.
A popular name of the plant is "kleines Mädesüss" which means "little sweet girl".
RE: f65R any identifications? - ReneZ - 18-12-2019
When plants are (tentatively) identified, I always wonder if these plants were actually known and used in the middle ages or before.
Clearly "filipendula vulgaris" is modern so that is not interesting. "Kleines Mädesüß" sounds more interesting, and a bit of searching around the net suggested a couple of things.
For one, it seems that "Mäde" is not from "Mädel" (little girl) but from "Med" (english: mead) which is a honey-based alcohol already brewed in Germany in the earliest middle ages. The drink also appears in Dioscorides' Materia Medica.
Filipendula would have been added for the taste, but this would have been filipendula ulmaria, i.e. "real" Mädesüss, not "small" Mädesüss.
The word honey has already been brought in connection with the next folio in the MS ("mel" on fol.66r ) , but I am not convinced about that one, and this just seems like one of these coincidences.
Finally, the leaves are really wrong for filipendula, even if they were based on a written description.
RE: f65R any identifications? - ReneZ - 18-12-2019
The plant illustration on folio 65r turns out to be an excellent example of one of the typical problems of plant identification in historical manuscripts. I use 'historical' to include anything from antiquity up to the invention of photography.
Accurate and life-like illustrations of plants only started to appear during the lifetimes of Brunfels and Fuchs, i.e. the middle of the 16th century.
Let me include two clips from the top of the plant on f65r.
On the right:
and on the left:
On the right-hand side, the branches are 'opposite'. On the left-hand side they are 'alternating'.
Now plants can have one or the other, but not both. It is one of the standard criteria for identifying them.
Whoever made the drawing in the Voynich MS was not copying this accurately from a specimen.
I have not searched for this 'problem' systematically in the MS, but I was struck by the clear example on this folio.
RE: f65R any identifications? - -JKP- - 18-12-2019
Filipendula is in many of the medieval herbals and the leaves are variable, depending on the species. Some are frondy, some are more palmate and the leaves are quite variable in the medieval botanical drawings, as well. What they all have in common is knobby roots.
Some of the star-flowered Saxifrages might also qualify for 65v, but I think Filipendula is one of the best choices. There are many common names for the Filipendulae (Bridewort, Dropwort, Meadwort, Meadowsweet, Queen of the meadow, Mjødurt, [font=Helvetica]Knoldet Mjødurt, Skoangervo, Brudbröd,Oinanthe, [/font]etc.) but the medieval herbals usually label it Filipendula.
It's in the Circa Instans family of herbals, also Morgan M.873, BnF Latin 6823, Historia Planatarum, Belluno, Masson 116, and Cadamosto 1108.
I have images of all these, but I don't have time to upload screensnaps right now, I'm very busy with work, but it's very easy to find Filipendula in herbals.
RE: f65R any identifications? - ReneZ - 18-12-2019
Indeed, 'Filipendula' was used in ME herbals. It is probably the specific type (Species) that was introduced later.
RE: f65R any identifications? - Aga Tentakulus - 19-12-2019
Interesting thing. I would never have thought to look for the name "Mädesüss" in medical. But I also read it.
For me it was actually clear, " Madi, Mädi, Mäde or Mädel ( Bavarian ), what girl, girlfriend or also Magt, means. It is also correctly written. But I can be wrong.
That brings me back to the first word on page 17.
"Masher", dialect form of mother ?
I'm working on it right now, the search for the eternal needle in a haystack.
But if I'm right, the place of origin can be limited to a few kilometres.
RE: f65R any identifications? - ReneZ - 19-12-2019
Here is a German link that helped me:
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RE: f65R any identifications? - -JKP- - 19-12-2019
Aga Wrote:...
For me it was actually clear, " Madi, Mädi, Mäde or Mädel ( Bavarian ), what girl, girlfriend or also Magt, means. It is also correctly written. But I can be wrong. ...
Aga, many of the "labels" on the "star map" folios start the same way. Would you give them the same beginning letters?
To know whether an interpretation is correct, you have to look at bigger sections of text. If it works on one word and not on the others, it's probably a coincidence.
RE: f65R any identifications? - -JKP- - 19-12-2019
Here is one of the biggest mistakes people make when they try to decipher VMS text...
Find something here that looks like it works... now hunt for something else that seems to work, now hunt for something else that seems to work.
This is not a good way to do it.
If you find something that looks like it works, then go to the folios at the end of the manuscript, the ones without images. Now try the same character substitutions on a couple of lines from that section (or any section), at least two full lines. If it doesn't work, then it's probably a coincidence that a few of the VMS tokens can be turned into words. It's quite easy to turn them into words if you pick out a token here or there. It's possible to do it in many languages. The reason it's so easy is twofold:
- The VMS has a lot of text, 200 pages of it. Even 200 pages of random text can be turned into words.
- The VMS has tall shapes and vowel-looking shapes more-or-less balanced in proportions that are similar to language. However, if you reverse the shapes, the same thing happens, which means you cannot be certain things that look like vowels or consonants are actually so.