In your opinion, did the writing of the VM start closer to 1412 or closer to 1440?

[Anton]

I have no solid foundations to choose between the two options but I voted for the first one, just because I once developed You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. It's indecisive of course.

I work with the assumption that the carbon-dating of 1404–1438 is probably correct or close to being correct.

Rather than "probably correct", it's correct but probabilistic

Here's Rene's summary on the matter: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

But it's important to recognize that the widely cited range (of 1404 - 1438 with 95% probability) derives from the "combined" dating of four different sampled folios. However it's not at all certain that all folios were prepared at one and the same moment in time. On the contrary, it's quite possible that the VMS creation spanned many years, especially given that originally it was probably unbound. If one considers sampled folios separately, then folio 68 suggests somewhat earlier creation date as compared to the three botanical folios. Other (unsampled) folios may yield yet different results.