07-02-2025, 11:42 AM
There is another plausible explanation for the cluster plots in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and for the observation 'the text correlates more closely with the illustrations than would be expected by chance'.
The explanation is very simple. I can envisage the following scenario.
The authors of the manuscript invented a private alphabet, together with a method for forming the text with the intention of creating an invented work. The 'method' for creating the text had no formal standard and so the individual authors could apply it using their own interpretation. Of the principal authors hand 1's method gave language A, hands 2 and 3 gave language B. This explains the A/B split. Further clustering comes about because the sections of the manuscript were written at different times, with significant gaps of time between them. Between writings the authors lost some fluency in the 'method'. And when they sat down to compose the next sections the writing came out different.
An example. If you look at figure 4 if the document you will see that 103, 108, 111 and 116 of quire 20 are plotted close together. These are pages of the same two sheet, and suggests that these pages might have been written in one sitting. The other pages of quire 20 ( same hand, 3 ) are plotted further away. They were written at some different time.
Because the manuscript is a fabrication it did not trouble the authors if there was variation in the writing. They never felt obliged to have to follow any particular standard.
The document ends 'If the pages are meaningless, its author would have had to vary the method used to generate the pages according to the subjects of the illustrations.' And this is indeed what happened. The method did vary with time, and with author. In the absence of any formal structure the writing unintentionally 'developed', section by section.
The explanation is very simple. I can envisage the following scenario.
The authors of the manuscript invented a private alphabet, together with a method for forming the text with the intention of creating an invented work. The 'method' for creating the text had no formal standard and so the individual authors could apply it using their own interpretation. Of the principal authors hand 1's method gave language A, hands 2 and 3 gave language B. This explains the A/B split. Further clustering comes about because the sections of the manuscript were written at different times, with significant gaps of time between them. Between writings the authors lost some fluency in the 'method'. And when they sat down to compose the next sections the writing came out different.
An example. If you look at figure 4 if the document you will see that 103, 108, 111 and 116 of quire 20 are plotted close together. These are pages of the same two sheet, and suggests that these pages might have been written in one sitting. The other pages of quire 20 ( same hand, 3 ) are plotted further away. They were written at some different time.
Because the manuscript is a fabrication it did not trouble the authors if there was variation in the writing. They never felt obliged to have to follow any particular standard.
The document ends 'If the pages are meaningless, its author would have had to vary the method used to generate the pages according to the subjects of the illustrations.' And this is indeed what happened. The method did vary with time, and with author. In the absence of any formal structure the writing unintentionally 'developed', section by section.