Morten St George Theory

[Morten St. George]

Years ago, in an Old French to French dictionary, I noticed that one of the definitions of mors referred to the bite of a scorpion. Not until hundreds of years later would they begin using Greek letters to name stars but it was always easy enough to envision that those names referred to stars.

In medieval manuscripts the words morsure, morsure, morsu, mors (and various other spellings) were used more generally. Most of the time they were referring to bite/sting (which could be dog bite, serpent's bite, scorpion sting, etc.), not specifically to scorpion sting. You will see these words very frequently in medieval herbals, where a plant is supposed to help treat a bite/sting.


Morten St. George: "Where do you see a four-legged critter with elevated tail that curves around?"


The curled tail in the VMS scorpion is similar to some of the lizard-style Scorpius sculptures in 12th to 15th-century church portals in northeastern France/Normandy that featured zodiac cycles. The tail was not always elevated (some were sculpted from the top rather than the side). The lizard-style Scorpius in manuscript art appears to have been derived from earlier sculptural art, since the sculptures precede the lizard-style Scorpius  drawings by a couple of centuries.

On Scorpio, I do not think you have convinced me that the VMS depiction had to have been made after 1244 CE.

Lately, I have been looking at a book by d'Imperio. It was written years ago, at a time when experts were trying to date the VMS without the aid of radiocarbon.

Some experts made comments that would fully support your theory of original redaction in the 15th century, such as,

1. "Sagittarius wears a fifteenth-century Florentine archer's hat in his medallion (though it is retouched over the month name)"

Google images is unable to show me a depiction of a fifteenth-century Florentine archer's hat. Can you point me to one?

2. "A clock, tucked away in folio 85r, has a short hour and long minute hand, a style not developed until the fifteenth century."

Do you agree with this? What time of day does this clock indicate? It might help me to find it.

On the other hand, a few experts made comments that might support my 13th-century theory, such as,

"It is strange that the draftsman should have so completely escaped all medieval or Renaissance influence."

I think this alludes to the VMS overall, in the sense that it seems to bear little resemblance to other manuscripts of the late Middle Ages. Looking at "medieval manuscripts" on Google images, that certainly seems to be the case.