The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[Koen G]

 In fact, the ENTIRE evidence for the provenance of the VMS between ~1438 and 1912 hinges on that letter describing the book B and no other book.

I agree that without that letter, there would be much less we could say. And even with the letter, I think some caution is required in trying to reconstruct the earlier provenance. For example, it would be great to have more evidence that Rudolf owned the MS (rather than it being present in courtly circles). You will never hear me say that Rudolf owned the MS with absolute certainty.

But the claim that the entire pre-Wilfrid provenance hinges on that letter is not true, or at least misleading. For example, Lisa matched the annotations on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to Marci's hand: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

And the binding history of the MS is consistent with the broad strokes of the suggested provenance (going by Lisa's summary): first bound in medieval European fashion between wooden boards, then bound in limp vellum consistent with the practice of the Jesuits.

And like Rene says, the letter is extra: even if the MS was found in someone's attic yesterday, we would still (after analysis of material, images and text) come to the conclusion that it is a 15th century original with multiple stages of previous ownership.