22-04-2021, 02:16 AM
(This post was last modified: 22-04-2021, 02:30 AM by geoffreycaveney.
Edit Reason: correct typo: 1415, not 1815
)
This may sound unbelievable to some people, but I now believe I have deduced the identity of the author of the Voynich manuscript.
It was the private personal diary of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1373-1415).
It didn't have to be a practical cipher, since no one knew it except Edward. There was no apparent security risk if it fell into the wrong hands, since it would look like a nonsensical made-up script composed of meaningless artistic symbols. Edward could plausibly claim it wasn't a cipher or meaningful writing at all, but just a private artistic creative activity of his. By the way, there would be no need to make any corrections to the ms in a private personal diary. No one else needed to be able to read and understand it anyway. The lack of corrections would also bolster the claim that it was meaningless, if he were ever to be questioned about it for whatever reason--this was before the printing press, so back then everyone knew that real manuscripts had corrections.
Edward famously translated You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. from French into English, an activity he completed between 1406 and 1413. Clearly he had all the linguistic knowledge, skills, and talent necessary to write in all of the languages found in the text of the Voynich manuscript, as well as the skill to design such a complex yet beautiful cipher. Edward's clear mastery of hunting makes him a natural candidate to write about the subject matter of the herbal and pharmaceutical sections of the ms as well.
Edward was the 2nd Duke of York, but he had to serve as the Lancastrian king Henry IV's Master of the Hart Hounds. Imagine how much it must have enraged him to have to carry on in polite society showing respect for the ruler he surely regarded as the usurper of his own family's rightful crown! His private personal diary, now known as the Voynich manuscript, could have served as his private outlet and personal release for all the extraordinary frustration he must have felt in the course of performing his necessary courtly duties in the Lancastrian court of Henry IV.
The greatest objection to this theory will be that handwriting analysts have concluded that at least 5 different "Hands" wrote various different pages and sections of the Voynich manuscript. But this was a private personal diary, and Edward was after all venting his frustration by writing what he wrote in it--this much is already clear from the blatant "YORK"-themed design of the cipher itself. It is also becoming clear to me from additional lines of the ms that I am reading right now, although I have not yet had the time to finalize the analysis of these lines in a form that I am ready to present publicly in this forum yet. As a short example, the first four words of the first line of folio page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. can be translated as "pledge: thou'ing of foe" (that is, to address him with the disrespectful familiar 2nd person singular pronoun "thou" rather than the respectful formal 2nd person plural pronoun "ye"). Note by the way that the third and fourth words of this line are identical: EVA [opaiin opaiin] = "fo fo". The first is read backwards; the second is read forwards: "of fo" (Middle English spelling of "foe").
So my analysis is that the 5 "Hands" simply represent Edward's various moods when he wrote in his diary. It is also natural to think that he may have had different handwriting when writing in English and when writing in French: there is a clear division of the "Hands" between the so-called "Dialects A & B".
Edward, 2nd Duke of York, was killed at the famous Battle of Agincourt in northern France in 1415. Edward was the highest-ranking English casualty of the battle. I propose that at some point in the confusion during or after the battle, after Edward's death, a Frenchman came into possession of Edward's diary and kept it as a sort of small spoils of war, a small consolation perhaps for the French side's defeat in the battle itself. That is how Edward's diary ended up in Continental Europe, eventually making its way into the possession of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, nearly two hundred years later.
Another potential objection to this theory is that according to some reports, Edward was killed at the Battle of Agincourt after he rushed forward to save the life of King Henry V. (Henry IV had died in 1413.) However, I believe the same person could have both written the virulently Yorkist Voynich manuscript in private while still acting loyally toward the Lancastrian King Henry V in public in an important battle. Edward dedicated The Master of Game to Henry V when the latter was still the Prince of Wales during his father Henry IV's reign. Perhaps this was all just a public act on Edward's part, or perhaps Edward simply despised Henry IV but did not necessarily blame Henry V for his father's crimes.
I do not know if the contents of the Voynich manuscript text will enable us to confirm or refute this theory one way or the other, but I believe that this theory explains many otherwise mysterious facts about the manuscript.
Geoffrey Edward Caveney
It was the private personal diary of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (1373-1415).
It didn't have to be a practical cipher, since no one knew it except Edward. There was no apparent security risk if it fell into the wrong hands, since it would look like a nonsensical made-up script composed of meaningless artistic symbols. Edward could plausibly claim it wasn't a cipher or meaningful writing at all, but just a private artistic creative activity of his. By the way, there would be no need to make any corrections to the ms in a private personal diary. No one else needed to be able to read and understand it anyway. The lack of corrections would also bolster the claim that it was meaningless, if he were ever to be questioned about it for whatever reason--this was before the printing press, so back then everyone knew that real manuscripts had corrections.
Edward famously translated You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. from French into English, an activity he completed between 1406 and 1413. Clearly he had all the linguistic knowledge, skills, and talent necessary to write in all of the languages found in the text of the Voynich manuscript, as well as the skill to design such a complex yet beautiful cipher. Edward's clear mastery of hunting makes him a natural candidate to write about the subject matter of the herbal and pharmaceutical sections of the ms as well.
Edward was the 2nd Duke of York, but he had to serve as the Lancastrian king Henry IV's Master of the Hart Hounds. Imagine how much it must have enraged him to have to carry on in polite society showing respect for the ruler he surely regarded as the usurper of his own family's rightful crown! His private personal diary, now known as the Voynich manuscript, could have served as his private outlet and personal release for all the extraordinary frustration he must have felt in the course of performing his necessary courtly duties in the Lancastrian court of Henry IV.
The greatest objection to this theory will be that handwriting analysts have concluded that at least 5 different "Hands" wrote various different pages and sections of the Voynich manuscript. But this was a private personal diary, and Edward was after all venting his frustration by writing what he wrote in it--this much is already clear from the blatant "YORK"-themed design of the cipher itself. It is also becoming clear to me from additional lines of the ms that I am reading right now, although I have not yet had the time to finalize the analysis of these lines in a form that I am ready to present publicly in this forum yet. As a short example, the first four words of the first line of folio page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. can be translated as "pledge: thou'ing of foe" (that is, to address him with the disrespectful familiar 2nd person singular pronoun "thou" rather than the respectful formal 2nd person plural pronoun "ye"). Note by the way that the third and fourth words of this line are identical: EVA [opaiin opaiin] = "fo fo". The first is read backwards; the second is read forwards: "of fo" (Middle English spelling of "foe").
So my analysis is that the 5 "Hands" simply represent Edward's various moods when he wrote in his diary. It is also natural to think that he may have had different handwriting when writing in English and when writing in French: there is a clear division of the "Hands" between the so-called "Dialects A & B".
Edward, 2nd Duke of York, was killed at the famous Battle of Agincourt in northern France in 1415. Edward was the highest-ranking English casualty of the battle. I propose that at some point in the confusion during or after the battle, after Edward's death, a Frenchman came into possession of Edward's diary and kept it as a sort of small spoils of war, a small consolation perhaps for the French side's defeat in the battle itself. That is how Edward's diary ended up in Continental Europe, eventually making its way into the possession of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, nearly two hundred years later.
Another potential objection to this theory is that according to some reports, Edward was killed at the Battle of Agincourt after he rushed forward to save the life of King Henry V. (Henry IV had died in 1413.) However, I believe the same person could have both written the virulently Yorkist Voynich manuscript in private while still acting loyally toward the Lancastrian King Henry V in public in an important battle. Edward dedicated The Master of Game to Henry V when the latter was still the Prince of Wales during his father Henry IV's reign. Perhaps this was all just a public act on Edward's part, or perhaps Edward simply despised Henry IV but did not necessarily blame Henry V for his father's crimes.
I do not know if the contents of the Voynich manuscript text will enable us to confirm or refute this theory one way or the other, but I believe that this theory explains many otherwise mysterious facts about the manuscript.
Geoffrey Edward Caveney