25-02-2016, 07:48 PM
(25-02-2016, 07:29 PM)MarcoP wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi Sam, in my opinion, the only case in which the goal could have been hiding information from the church is BNF 7272 (but this case is also doubtful).
Hildegard's lingua ignota could have been motivated by some mystical purpose (and I think this could also be the case with BNF 7272).
The other cases (medical and engineering manuscripts by Foxton, Fontana etc) were apparently meant to protect professional secrets. For instance, what makes you think that Fontana's goal was protecting himself from the church?
You're probably right. The paper on Foxton you cited earlier mentions hiding secrets from the church as an important motive for cryptography, but reading more carefully I now see that the author isn't actually proposing that as the motive in the case of Foxton.