08-02-2018, 08:28 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-02-2018, 08:30 AM by Diane.
Edit Reason: clarify
)
David.
I come by too rarely, and have just seen your comment above.
It is amazing how far the thinking has advanced since 2011 or so, that you can say this without meeting hostility - a real sea-change has taken place with the establishment of voynich.ninja. Congrats to you and the moderators.
What I see is not entirely unlike the scenario you describe, but I think I can be a little more exact even if this isn't the place to adduce all the material informing the opinion.
I'll skip straight to the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century..
Around that time, so the evidence suggests, most - not all - of what is now contained in the fifteenth-century manuscript had entered the south-western area of the Mediterranean, and specifically the network of connections linking Majorca, France, England, northern Spain and Genoa. (There is solid historical evidence for that particular set).
From there we begin to see comparable ideas and practices - not only in imagery - seeping into works of plainly Latin provenance. First in England and France (at the time so closely connected that many thought they'd become one kingdom in the near future), and then through northern Italy to about the time the Vms was made, and thereafter further to the north into central Europe.
Once the material moves into the Latin horizons' - not just the physical region but the cultural horizon - it is increasingly affected by the Latin scribes' existing attitudes, habits and formal training. Some late additions to the Vms also show the impact of Latin attitudes attempting to 'correct' the original forms... the ruled sort of line which transforms a pool into a kind of bath is an example. Or the representation of the sagittario for Sagittarius as Arcitenens.
I think it quite possible that those who made our present manuscript were Latins, or newly-made conversos. The point is that what they had received had not been either first enunciated, nor maintained over ... well, say a very long time... by Latins.
Since Europe's colonial era it has been difficult for historians to get across to the general public the idea that ultimate control over what entered the Latin world was not invariably in the hands of a Christian male. The model was that the westerner went and 'took' this or that from a passive holder, rather than gratefully receiving material from a superior but non-Latin source. It's an idea the historians have been struggling to rectify in the public imagination for decades - since the 1960s, but it does die hard.
That's why it's nice to see that you do not presume the 'white man' necessarily the superior in a process of cultural exchange. Thanks for posting that.
I come by too rarely, and have just seen your comment above.
Quote:I'm sorry, I meant they were exposed to western cultural heritage - hence all the vague links we keep spotting - but that they were not formally trained in the traditions and so just reinterpreted the imagery they saw.
Rather like a westerner who goes to Japan, has access to traditional Japanese culture, but who has never been trained in it. This person may well draw upon the traditional imagery, and even copy elements of it, but their work would not be in the formal tradition.
It is amazing how far the thinking has advanced since 2011 or so, that you can say this without meeting hostility - a real sea-change has taken place with the establishment of voynich.ninja. Congrats to you and the moderators.
What I see is not entirely unlike the scenario you describe, but I think I can be a little more exact even if this isn't the place to adduce all the material informing the opinion.
I'll skip straight to the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century..
Around that time, so the evidence suggests, most - not all - of what is now contained in the fifteenth-century manuscript had entered the south-western area of the Mediterranean, and specifically the network of connections linking Majorca, France, England, northern Spain and Genoa. (There is solid historical evidence for that particular set).
From there we begin to see comparable ideas and practices - not only in imagery - seeping into works of plainly Latin provenance. First in England and France (at the time so closely connected that many thought they'd become one kingdom in the near future), and then through northern Italy to about the time the Vms was made, and thereafter further to the north into central Europe.
Once the material moves into the Latin horizons' - not just the physical region but the cultural horizon - it is increasingly affected by the Latin scribes' existing attitudes, habits and formal training. Some late additions to the Vms also show the impact of Latin attitudes attempting to 'correct' the original forms... the ruled sort of line which transforms a pool into a kind of bath is an example. Or the representation of the sagittario for Sagittarius as Arcitenens.
I think it quite possible that those who made our present manuscript were Latins, or newly-made conversos. The point is that what they had received had not been either first enunciated, nor maintained over ... well, say a very long time... by Latins.
Since Europe's colonial era it has been difficult for historians to get across to the general public the idea that ultimate control over what entered the Latin world was not invariably in the hands of a Christian male. The model was that the westerner went and 'took' this or that from a passive holder, rather than gratefully receiving material from a superior but non-Latin source. It's an idea the historians have been struggling to rectify in the public imagination for decades - since the 1960s, but it does die hard.
That's why it's nice to see that you do not presume the 'white man' necessarily the superior in a process of cultural exchange. Thanks for posting that.