Morten St George Theory

[Morten St. George]

Morten: Our all-critical page of wheels (f57v) is also marked by what seems to be a quire number in the bottom right-hand corner where we find a mysterious number "5". But this cannot be the 5th quire because You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. lies between the 7th and 8th quires, and an earlier page is already marked as the 5th quire. Here you see our mysterious number 5 followed by, for comparison, the markings for the 5th and 15th quires:

Morten, that's not a number 5. It simply wasn't written like that in any medieval or early Renaissance script.

It is most likely the letter "g". A number of scribes wrote "g" by writing a "y" shape and then adding the crossbar. I have posted examples on another thread.


But it's not 5. I haven't seen a 5 written like that in any manuscript. You are correct that the number in the middle pic (that looks a bit like a modern "7") is the number 5.

Thanks JP. I have amended my essay to indicate that the number 5 is "disputed". I was working on the basis of the horizontal crossbar which, as seen here, was introduced in the 16th century:



In my opinion, the figure on the bottom right of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. closely resembles the middle 5 of the 15th century with a horizontal crossbar being added. That's just fine for me because I am arguing that the intention of the marginalia author was to draw attention to a bar.

I see an isolated number "19" (no accompanying letters) on the bottom corner of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and an isolated number "20" (no accompanying letters) on the bottom corner of f103r. Other than the "g" on f72v, do you find an isolated letter on the bottom corner of any page?