Distinguishing Characters

[Mark Knowles]

There is an evolutionary gap between substitution ciphers and more advanced ciphers/codes that the Voynich fills nicely.

I'm not sure if this is the best way of putting this given the current state of our knowledge. It suggests that the Voynich cipher (if we assume it is one) is a conscious attempt to make substitution ciphers more difficult to crack. Wouldn't we expect such innovation in a different context, i.e. politics, espionage, military...? The Voynich just appears to be a different beast altogether, at least I wouldn't place it in any kind of evolutionary or hierarchical scheme.

I view the Voynich cipher as something that evolved out of Diplomatic Ciphers of the early 15th century. Whilst the Voynich is not a diplomatic document I believe that Milanese diplomatic ciphers were the parent from which the Voynich cipher emerged. It is noteworthy that early 15th century Milanese ciphers have advanced features not seen in later 15th century Milanese ciphers. In fact the most sophisticated Milanese cipher of the 15th century known to me dates to 1424. I believe that Milanese ciphers became simple for reasons of ease of use.