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+--- Thread: [split] Commissioned or not? (/thread-2446.html)
RE: [split] Commissioned or not? - -JKP- - 30-07-2018
I have no idea if it was commissioned or written for personal use.
My first instinct was that it was for personal use or to be bequeathed from parent to child. Trade secrets were extremely important in the Middle Ages. In some cultures they still are. In the modern technological world, the concept has almost disappeared but it was still alive and well up until the Internet changed it.
RE: [split] Commissioned or not? - Anton - 30-07-2018
Quote:We have to deal with low entropy because of C and D's ignorance of the script.
I would say it's a very pleasant thought to offload our own ignorance to certain messrs С and D!
RE: [split] Commissioned or not? - Common_Man - 31-07-2018
The more I look at VMS pages, it looks to me like a teacher's notes..
Made from more than one source manuscripts available at the time, to teach stuff written in them.
Maybe as a trade secret, they added strange nature to the text to make it unreadable (deliberately adding suffixes, putting an idea in a line [LAAFU], and freely omitting initial letters [Derek's findins]) to those who haven't read the originals,and don't know the conventions. And since this is a teacher's copy, just for them to get the ideas, grammar might not have been strictly folowed. Also kindof explains the metaphorical nature of some drawings (to show students hand-shaped leaves of a plant for example (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.), rather than telling them they're hand shaped and expecting them to by-heart it)
Just a theory trying to make sense of most of what we know. I know it's a looong shot..
RE: [split] Commissioned or not? - bi3mw - 31-07-2018
Suppose the VMS was not a commissioned work, in what environment could it have been produced? Usually, manuscripts were produced in writing workshops or monasteries (Europe). Relatively rich people did not write manuscripts by themselves. Scholars wanted to share knowledge and therefore chose common languages.
I tend to a commission work for a very special client / collector.
RE: [split] Commissioned or not? - ReneZ - 31-07-2018
This is all speculative, indeed, but my main thought is that, if it were a commissioned work, it should have been executed more carefully. Ruling and accurate painting should be expected in my opinion.
RE: [split] Commissioned or not? - Anton - 31-07-2018
The solid argument against commissioning is the "aror sheey" marginalia in the last folio. The reasoning is as follows:
1. A commissioned work would not feature idle marginalia. Hence, marginalia were left by the purchaser (or even later owner)
2. However, "aror sheey" seems to be written in at least one of the same hands as the main corpus. Hence, it was left by the creator.
These two contradict each other.
RE: [split] Commissioned or not? - Koen G - 31-07-2018
Anton: not at all, many marginalia are pen trials.
Rene: the shoddy paint job is a problem of its own. If the MS (or copy) was commissioned to be sent somewhere, then time constraints might explain the roughness. If, as VViews holds, the colors are not original, then they are irrelevant to this question.
The lack of ruling is not an issue. In 1406, Chortasmenos was commissioned by one monk Nathanael from the Prodromos Petra monastery to restore the famed Juliana Anicia Codex. Part of this restoration involved a transcription of the original Greek Uncial, which resulted in one of the most Voynich-like layouts I've found.
![[Image: waterlily.jpg]](https://herculeaf.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/waterlily.jpg)
It all depends on the specifications of the commission, the amount of freedom of the scribe(s), their background, training, personal preferences, time and financial constraints and so on.
RE: [split] Commissioned or not? - ReneZ - 31-07-2018
Actually, I would not consider a task for a monk in a monastery a 'commission', but this may be a matter of taste.
I consider it entirely possible that the Voynich MS was written by a scribe, who was told by someone to copy an original (draft). In that sense, if we call that a commission, then this is for me a likely possibility.
RE: [split] Commissioned or not? - Koen G - 31-07-2018
I guess then we're on the same page about the possibilities. I would agree that there are certain types of commissions which are ruled out for the VM. You can't go up to a workshop and ask "please make me a copy of the VM by next month". It would have to be with specific instructions and/or example material.
Basically what I'm saying is that we must consider the possibility that the persons who did the "manufacturing" were not necessarily the "brain" behind the composition.
RE: [split] Commissioned or not? - davidjackson - 31-07-2018
I would disagree and say that it is most likely that the scribe is the author.
We thus have no editing, because the scribe is worrying what he knows in a fluid fashion.
The scribe is probably transcribing from private notes, and had a good idea about what he wants to commit to paper on each page, leading to a confident and fluid style.
Furthermore, if we postulate that he is transcribing his life 's notes, then different handwriting may be nothing more than the signs of advancing age / disease.
This would also explain the folio coverage and binding issues.the scribe was writing on folios, and not worrying about how it would be bound up. So we end up with the rosette, and the balneario folios which jump from front to back.
All of this presupposes that the scribe was fluent in Voynichese of course.