01-04-2023, 06:11 PM
Ah, this old chestnut.
First of all, I think it is not always easy to determine why anybody does a thing. Why do some people love to watch sports and why don't I?
So sometimes assigning a purpose to a thing is difficult. What was or is the purpose of "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion" by Henry Darger?
It is even possible that the motivations of the Voynich author(s) changed from what they were initially.
Anyway, here are some motivations of the top of my head:
1) Practical Application. The author(s) may have secretly compiled information useful to their work in the Voynich, so the Voynich may have been intended as a very practical text of say medieval medicine. Maybe the author wanted it to be secret, so as to protect their status as a healer from their knowledge being stolen by rivals.(Again this would tie in with a motivation of status and possibly financial reasons.) The manuscript could have been intended for use purely to treat oneself.
2) Financial. This could be to sell either as an original document or as a hoax. There is no evidence as to whether the Voynich was successfully sold by the author(s) or not. Even if it was never sold by the author that doesn't mean that it wasn't the original intention.
3) Career. (I suppose this is linked to a financial motivation, but also status.) It is often suggested that the Voynich was written to impress someone and thereby obtain some advancement.
4) Personal interest. I think it has been suggested that medieval people were not motivated by such things, I am inclined to doubt that as I don't regard medieval people as quite so different from modern people. So this would mean that the writing of the Voynich was understaken as a project of 1 or a group of people for personal interest.
Of course it could be a mixture of some or all of these motivations.
I am sure that there are other possible motivations.
What do I think?
I think the motivation was most likely a combination of practical application and personal interest.
First of all, I think it is not always easy to determine why anybody does a thing. Why do some people love to watch sports and why don't I?
So sometimes assigning a purpose to a thing is difficult. What was or is the purpose of "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion" by Henry Darger?
It is even possible that the motivations of the Voynich author(s) changed from what they were initially.
Anyway, here are some motivations of the top of my head:
1) Practical Application. The author(s) may have secretly compiled information useful to their work in the Voynich, so the Voynich may have been intended as a very practical text of say medieval medicine. Maybe the author wanted it to be secret, so as to protect their status as a healer from their knowledge being stolen by rivals.(Again this would tie in with a motivation of status and possibly financial reasons.) The manuscript could have been intended for use purely to treat oneself.
2) Financial. This could be to sell either as an original document or as a hoax. There is no evidence as to whether the Voynich was successfully sold by the author(s) or not. Even if it was never sold by the author that doesn't mean that it wasn't the original intention.
3) Career. (I suppose this is linked to a financial motivation, but also status.) It is often suggested that the Voynich was written to impress someone and thereby obtain some advancement.
4) Personal interest. I think it has been suggested that medieval people were not motivated by such things, I am inclined to doubt that as I don't regard medieval people as quite so different from modern people. So this would mean that the writing of the Voynich was understaken as a project of 1 or a group of people for personal interest.
Of course it could be a mixture of some or all of these motivations.
I am sure that there are other possible motivations.
What do I think?
I think the motivation was most likely a combination of practical application and personal interest.