Morten St George Theory

[Morten St. George]

You don't appear to have any knowledge of paleography.

This style of handwriting had long since been replaced by humanist-style hands (or hybrids of humanist and Gothic handwriting) by 1600. The marginalia is written in a style common to the 15th century and very uncommon in the year 1600. By the 1500s scholars were rejecting Gothic as ugly and difficult to read (both of which are true) and were modifying their writing. Children were taught a different style.

The new writing that gradually replaced Gothic cursive was inspired in part by Italian handwriting, which was cleaner and more readable than northern Gothic styles.

In fact, the marginalia shows small signs of the 14th century as well. It's possible whoever wrote it was born and learned to write at the end of the 14th century. Either that, or the writer may have lived in a less urban area where the changes occurred more slowly but... this style of writing was almost completely obsolete by 1600.

The quire numbers are also in the old style of writing that had almost disappeared by the early 16th century and mostly disappeared by the mid-16th century.

It seems you are dating the marginalia on the basis of handwriting style. My counterargument is as follows: while it is unlikely that someone in the 16th century could adopt a writing style that did not come into vogue until the 20th century, it is certainly possible for someone in the 16th century to adopt a writing style that was in vogue during the 14th or 15th centuries. This would be especially true for someone who, like you, was in regular contact with old manuscripts, and for someone who wanted to disguise his writing and the time of writing by making it look older than what it was.

For my part, I am dating the marginalia strictly on the basis of its thematic content. As I demonstrate in my essay, the marginalia expresses familiarity with a prophecy that was not published until the year 1588. It also expresses familiarity with a botanical book published in the year 1597. Meanwhile, that botanical book expresses familiarity with both the VMS and the theme of its marginalia. This reminds me of something in the field of English literature, where scholars reject claims that a certain person was the author of certain plays on the basis that those plays referred to historical events that occurred after that person had died. With similar logic, the author of the marginalia did not live in the 15th century. He had to have been alive in the late 16th century.

Unfortunately, carbon-dating does not apply to ink as it contains no carbon. Chemical analysis is also of little help because iron gall inks were in common use from the 6th through 19th centuries. We must therefore rely on handwriting style and thematic content. I think thematic content is the stronger argument: handwriting style can be imitated, but knowledge of future publications would be virtually impossible to attain.