Morten St George Theory

[Morten St. George]

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.

I can't imagine why you think the VMS was created as something to be sold. Are you a supporter of one of the hoax theories?

I also don't know why you think the VMS was professionally prepared for binding. How do explain finding quire numbers "19" and "20" side by side? Why aren't the large botanical drawings all found together in one place?

As you know, I think the marginalia including page numbers and quire numbers (irrespective of different writing styles) were all made by the same person or persons at the same time.

In contrast, you are in effect claiming that the quire number "11m9" (written precisely as "11" followed by superscript "m9") is frequently seen in medieval manuscripts and therefore I am fully unjustified in suggesting that the final "m9" was manipulated to "mn" in order to allude to Michel Nostradamus.



I'll concede that you may have the superior argument if you could kindly show us a few "11m9" (written precisely as "11" followed by superscript "m9") from other medieval manuscripts, so that we can compare them with the 11m(?) of the VMS. Please let us know for each, as best you can determine, the country of binding and also the century during which the respective manuscript was bound. I look forward to your response.