19-08-2019, 07:51 PM
Morten, the quire numbers are more than likely added after the VMS was no longer being worked on.
In the Middle Ages, binding occurred weeks or months or decades and often even centuries after the manuscript was created. They were not sold bound. Most of the time, they were sold unbound, just as people buy artwork unframed from artists and go to a framer and have it framed to their own taste. Book binding was the same, you chose your bookbinder and your style of binding and then they crafted it by hand.
The possibility that it is a messy 9 (which is what it looks like) is FAR greater than the possibility that someone ENCODED an "n" that doesn't look like an "n" into a quire number that was probably added years later.
Your explanation is by far more "out there" than mine.
In the Middle Ages, binding occurred weeks or months or decades and often even centuries after the manuscript was created. They were not sold bound. Most of the time, they were sold unbound, just as people buy artwork unframed from artists and go to a framer and have it framed to their own taste. Book binding was the same, you chose your bookbinder and your style of binding and then they crafted it by hand.
The possibility that it is a messy 9 (which is what it looks like) is FAR greater than the possibility that someone ENCODED an "n" that doesn't look like an "n" into a quire number that was probably added years later.
Your explanation is by far more "out there" than mine.