No text? A visual code!

[R. Sale]

As sure as Dame Necessity holds the cosmic spindle, there is another nymph, a character on VMs White Aries inner ring, that wears a red hat and stands in a tub with blue stripes. And through the perspective of medieval heraldry, both of these elements serve as identifying attributes, but what do they identify?

Medieval heraldry has two main concerns: armorial heraldry and ecclesiastical heraldry. The hats are ecclesiastical, and the stripes are armorial. From the perspective of the medieval church, different color hats were used to designate different orders and ranks within the church hierarchy. Red was for cardinals, white for Premonstratensians and green (on subsequent VMs pages) was for abbots.

Things are more complex on the armorial side. That is because, as a visual code, the code has been encoded. Disguise and deception have been employed. The orientation of the blue-striped patterns has both a radial and a page-based interpretation. This is clear duplicity.

Secondly, there is intentional confusion caused by certain ink markings. The markings are intended to confuse the issue and violate the rules of heraldry. It's the *blue* stripes that matter. And it's the orientation: bendy, argent et azur, that pairs the blue-striped patterns of VMs White Aries and connects to history.