Morten St George Theory

[Morten St. George]

The Cathar "heresy" certainly appears in popular tradition until the early to mid 15th century when it finally disappears, crushed under the weight of the Catholic church. A similar tradition continues through the Bogomil Balkanic sect, which was quite popular until it was eradicated by the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the mid 15th century. The debate really is whether the Italians continued with Cathari, or whether we are seeing echoes in the Inquisitorial records of Bogomilic influences carried over the waters.

For me, the most pertinent debate concerns whether or not the "great treasure" that escaped the siege of Montségur (pictured in the VMS) in 1244 were the prophecies encoded into quire 20.

I think JP may have been confusing Catharism with other heresies but it doesn't matter much. In MSG Theory, an undetermined number of Cathars merged with an undetermined number of Cabalists (who provided encryption techniques) after the fall of Montségur and a group of their women set off for the Americas. Previously I thoughtlessly indicated that they wanted to escape torture and death. In truth they likely had no such fears: they would have welcomed martyrdom because they believed it would bring them eternal bliss in the afterlife.

But the writings of their god (the "Good God" as contrasted with the Evil God of the Roman Church) were another matter. Those writings certainly could have been viewed as something that needed to be preserved. For that reason alone, they may have attempted to cross the Atlantic.

Catharism in Mexico was likely exterminated by the Aztecs upon expansion of their empire in the 15th century. Any elements of Catharism that may have survived the Aztecs would certainly have been erased by the Spanish Inquisition in the following century. For sure, there could have been more books written in Voynichese that were simply burned. It was Inquisition policy not to remind the natives of prior idolatries so they would have left no record of the books they destroyed.

Of course, given the Cathar aversion towards copulation in any form, it is unlikely that the VM is a product of this tradition.

You might be hitting upon the reason only women were chosen to make the transatlantic crossing. By eliminating all possibility for copulation, they were likewise eliminating childbirth as a factor that could upset their escape from the material world and its endless cycle of rebirth.

As in Europe where the Cathars always strove to make new converts, the European Cathars in America (prior to becoming extinct by lack of offspring) would have endeavored to make converts of the native Americans, who would have been taught the art of parchment making and how to make copies of the sacred writings brought over from Europe. In MSG Theory, one of those copies is our VMS.