R. Sale, I really meant only to broaden the horizons of people working on the text's written part, to remind them of languages that were known in medieval Europe or some part of it.
I think the issue with your idea is that the patterns used in heraldry - as distinct from pictorial elements - are just patterns. When a scale-pattern is used in heraldry, it's called papellony. When a zig-zag horizontal line is used, I believe, it is called "dancetty".
The patterns therefore may be just patterns and that's all. If they were intended to be read as heraldry, then I think it curious that none uses any of the usual marks to indicate metals, and that there is no particular effort made to distinguish the background from the foreground, as heraldry normally does. On the other hand, if the 'labels' turn out to be names of people, and we find that the barrel pattern for each is the appropriate one, your argument would have a fair chance of being demonstrable, even proveable.
I've seen you offer the Fieschi as owners of one design. Have you suggested owners for any others? At one time I toyed with the idea of checking the 'barrels' against the Prophecy of the Popes (Prophecy of Malachy), but realised that following that line would be to begin paying more attention to some hypothesis of mine than to the manuscript itself and its internal evidence, and the relevant range of comparative and historical and archaeological evidence (which is quite enough work). Slipping into researching hypotheses, to the point where the manuscript is hardly looked at - seems to hover as a chronic temptation in Voynich studies.
I think the issue with your idea is that the patterns used in heraldry - as distinct from pictorial elements - are just patterns. When a scale-pattern is used in heraldry, it's called papellony. When a zig-zag horizontal line is used, I believe, it is called "dancetty".
The patterns therefore may be just patterns and that's all. If they were intended to be read as heraldry, then I think it curious that none uses any of the usual marks to indicate metals, and that there is no particular effort made to distinguish the background from the foreground, as heraldry normally does. On the other hand, if the 'labels' turn out to be names of people, and we find that the barrel pattern for each is the appropriate one, your argument would have a fair chance of being demonstrable, even proveable.
I've seen you offer the Fieschi as owners of one design. Have you suggested owners for any others? At one time I toyed with the idea of checking the 'barrels' against the Prophecy of the Popes (Prophecy of Malachy), but realised that following that line would be to begin paying more attention to some hypothesis of mine than to the manuscript itself and its internal evidence, and the relevant range of comparative and historical and archaeological evidence (which is quite enough work). Slipping into researching hypotheses, to the point where the manuscript is hardly looked at - seems to hover as a chronic temptation in Voynich studies.