The bottom margin

[Emma May Smith]

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.

Of course it's caused by forward planning. I won't believe that the matter is accidental. The question is in the nature of this planning. In the balneo, and especially in the botanical section, the nature of this planning is on the surface - the text present on the page should relate to the images therein depicted. But in the recipe section there are no images, so nothing to relate to.

Why would he want X paragraphs on a particular page, and not Y paragraphs? Especially given that this "X" is not constant, neither it exhibits any recognized numerological series (does it?)

And again: the text density does not diminish towards the end of the page, that's what puzzles me. Note how tightly close are the leading gallows of last paragraphs to the previous line (the last line of next-to-last paragraphs). Would a scribe who knows that it is the last paragraph on the page that he is going to put down, and who knows that he still has plenty of page space - would he still conserve the linebreak space?

I don't know why the scribe would want a particular number of paragraphs on a page. As you say, it's puzzling because the number changes between folios. But we can still say that, in a number of cases, recto and verso do match. I don't think that's chance.

As for the text density, has anybody measured line height and spacing? Does it alter greatly throughout the text, and would the scribe even have the choice to space out the lines a bit more?