The bottom margin

[Emma May Smith]

1) Several pages of Quire 20 have the same number of stars/recipes on both recto and verso. This suggests that the writer could have been aiming for a specific number, regardless of whether another recipe would fit. Both 105r and 105v have ten recipes, 104r and 104v have thirteen, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and 106v have fifteen (though the stars don't match), and 107r and 107v also have fifteen.

That's an option indeed.

2) There's no guarantee that the order we see pages in today is the original writing order. Pelling has put forward a good argument that Quire 20 may have originally been two, and that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was the original first page.

That's a good point (I completely forgot about that). But the same behaviour holds true for some r -> v (instead of v -> r) pairs. Like e.g. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -> f104v. It's obvious that only You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. can follow f104r, and not any other folio.

Put the two points together and the balance is toward the paragraph distribution being caused by forward planning. The writer knew he wanted X number of paragraphs on a page and wasn't interested in whether he could fit more in the gap left at the bottom.