[split] f28v

[Mark Knowles]

You think that's a 4???

Do you realize how SMALL that is? That's a pen width. It's smaller than the main text which is also quite small.

That's a vertical stroke with a hook or serif. Like the letter i, l, or the number 1. It was very common to add serifs on medieval text and numerals (especially 1).

I don't agree that it looks anything like a 4 if you take into consideration the scale.


The VMS is SMALL. It's the size of a trade paperback. The scans we have been given are BIGGER than the original manuscript.

Here is a screen snap of the mystery-scribble side-by-side with a V-word from the same folio. This is pretty much the exact width of the VMS in real life.



If I hold up a ruler to the screen, it almost exactly matches the ruler in the above pic. On my other monitor this pic is actually bigger than a real ruler.

Larger scans are not going to make it clearer. They will simply distort your perception of what a quill pen can do on textured vellum (which isn't very much at this scale).

Ultimately this is where we each make a visual interpretation of what we see on the page. What I see looks very little like IHS and much more a long the lines that I have suggested.

More data is always better than less data. Larger scans mean more data.