The prisoner scenario: a though experiment

[ReneZ]

There are some pros and cons to the ideas offered here, but most examples of these are from 100-150 years later. That may be a sign of the times, or it may be that we have more information about these later ages.

Indeed, as Stolfi indicated, the first scenario was basically that of Kelly, but this was in 1580-1590 or so.

Scrap vellum for a hermit, or tiny pieces of vellum sneaked into prison, don't work because of the large foldout.

People were indeed silenced, imprisoned, and even put to death for unwelcome ideas. Giordano Bruno (1600) is a famous case, but again this is in 1600.

Undoubtedly, the creator(s) of the MS must have seen numerous different types of manuscripts. This mightnot be a problem for the prison case, but a bit more so for the hermit case.

When looking at scenarios, the most interesting aspect is whether this provides some kind of explanation for the text. The prison idea might seem to work there: some leverage by the prisoner to really divulge the secret. I don't know...

But the real problem is not that the text is unreadable.
It is the fact that this mysterious text is so consistent: consistent alphabet throughout, consistent words over 200 pages. This is not the result of some on-the-fly and without-much-preparation effort.