Morten St George Theory

[Morten St. George]

It may or may not be the letter z.

It's probably a rotated "m" shape which is a common Latin abbreviation symbol that looks like "z" but is used at the ends of words. It has a variety of meanings, but two of the more common expansions are "em" or "um". The line over the two letters is a macron, an apostrophe symbol.

It does not look like a medieval 8, not at all and medieval 8 was never written with a tail.

Here are some examples of 8 from the 14th century. The ones from the 15th century are basically the same. Note the loops are generally quite wide, not squished like the last letter in luc'm

Gosh, JP, I was only trying to describe glyphs (VMS symbols that resemble the number 8) because, apparently, it is not possible to type the actual glyph given that, to date, no one has bothered to incorporate those glyphs into the ASCII table. I was not referring, literally, to the number 8.

Similarly, the first letter under the bar would be the glyph (VMS symbol) that resembles the letter c with a top that extends straight out to the right. as seen in three of the four sequences of 17 on f57v. I very much doubt that it is the letter c followed by a rotated m.

Let's agree to disagree and call it quits. OK?