05-01-2026, 07:45 PM
In this post I want to continue with, in my view the important and necessary, notion of the proper unit of analysis of the Voynich manuscript as I outlined previously, by focusing on the topic of the history of the VM and offering an alternative viewpoint as a hypothetical framework for your consideration.
Having that broader unit of analysis in mind for the VM, I would roughly periodize its history into three phases.
The first phase, during 1300s, I no longer will call “draft” but in fact “the original parchment” (assuming it was not yet on vellum, that is calfskin, but either on paper or other less expensive sheep or goat skins or a combination of them, more likely the paper parchment since it served as a workbook, but it really does not matter which). It was an author created and used original, used for a long while in her life to deal with personal troubles amid public issues of her time (for now, to make it easier, given some indications in the existing incomplete vellum, I will refer to the author as she/her).
The text may have been offered to the author by specialists per her request, such as astrologers, plants experts and book sources, healing suggestions, medical advice as framed in the cultural context of that time, etc. But the author could have over time added illustrations to make the more abstract and technical material more understandable for her. This was a handbook, written and kept privately and used as a workbook.
It was most likely not bound, since it did not need to be, for personal use. It would have been easier just to use the information sheet at a time, a plant, an astronomical chart, a pharmaceutical making/using instruction, chanting ideas, etc. We owe to Lisa Fagin Davis that idea and good finding (although she was referring to the vellum version, while I am adding that the unbind, sheet-based usage preceded that).
To go to the roof to see the lunar and star maps to plan her next balneological or pharmaceutical treatment, let us say, you don’t need to take plant pages with you, just one sheet or two will do. The texts related to each plant would not have to be on the same page as the plants. As new information was found and creatively drawn and painted about a plant, some text was written on a separate sheet (it could have been on the same sheet, but that did not have to be necessarily always the case, is what I am saying).
There were “boxes” perhaps including various sections. Plants, likely birth or planetary charts (now missing), lunar charts for timely actions, pharmaceutical section, balneological section, a section listing the stars used for the handbook, and a fold-out imagining what the goal was, bringing it all together, perhaps with some magical considerations for wishes to be made and realized (like in astrology, Ferdaria type visions of things that can and are expected to happen, or achievements to be made as depicted in the largest foldout).
I won’t go into more details of the first phase of what I call “Original Parchment” (OP) phase. The author was alive, and likely developed her own, for privacy and other public scrutiny reasons, system of abbreviations, alphabets, some borrowed from standard sets, others entirely made up by her that only she could know what they stand for (letters, words, even thoughts or technical data, etc.). There was no need for “scribes” doing it. She may have received instructions from experts so may have had some texts given to begin with, but expressed them in her own way, adding her illustrations to make the details more tangible for herself, and perhaps for loved ones she was also trying to help.
The second phase is that of the “Complete Vellum” (CV). This is what was most likely prepared around 1400-1450, during a range of time uncovered by the carbon dating tests. Since we don’t have some sections anymore, even some may have been prepared starting earlier, and could have taken several years.
During the second phase, the author was no longer alive, but perhaps by her instructions and prior planning, it was planned to be transferred to the durable vellum. This CV most likely included everything from the OP (original parchment), all the now-missing sections still present. Because the OP was not paginated, neither was this CV, though some scribes doing it could have had some (likely proven wrong) ideas about how to order the folios for possible binding as a collection.
There is no reason to assume that the scribes of the CV had absolutely no idea what language the text was in. The reason is, they may have known who the original author/user was, and just based on that could have guessed its main language. Perhaps they did not know exactly one or another symbol or abbreviation or contraction method, but the CV included information that could have identified the author and background of the OP. This CV was completed at some point in mid 1400s, whereas the OP belonged to the previous century (1300s).
The scribes added their own styles to make the vellum, since now the concern was to make sure all the OP was transferred economically to the vellum. So, texts were included mostly on the same page as the plant images, they used foldouts, etc. For them, it was not a mysterious text, short of some aspects they may have had to transfer by copying from the original, without scrutinizing what they made. Scribes were scribes, after all. Mistakes could have happened, but generally were minimal since they had a PO to copy from.
The third phase I would call the Incomplete Vellum (IV) phases. This is when for various reasons having to do with the interest of selling the vellum to a highest bidder, who ended up being Rudolph II, the CV transitioned to the IV. And this is where the story of the VM becomes very interesting, in my view, resulting in the existing partial “enigmatic” vellum.
Here is a possible hypothetical way this could have happened, at some point after the CV had been completed.
First, they paginated the CV to bind it for the purpose of selling it, and it was done. Although they did not know exactly the best way to put them in order, they did it in a way that was not reasonable, or did it in intentionally distracting way, such as moving some folios of the plant section to the end, moving the stars/recipe section to the end, rather than before the star/moon charts, etc.
However, as they did so and paginated the collection, they began to wonder if the sections in the CV identifying the author could make it less enigmatic, or even give away the author, so to speak. After all, if Rudolph suspected that the manuscript he way buying belonged to an archive already in his dominion, let us say, why would he buy what he already owned and was fetched from a place belonging to his dominion.
So, they said, let’s take the birth/planetary charts out and other identifying quires, including perhaps even anything that could have served as a title page, cipher key (for personal use of the original author), or anything making the text decipherable more easily, out. Then they bounded it.
However, they soon realized two pages related to the Zodiac pages could still give away their intended enigmatic artifact and spoil the sale. So, they had no choice but literally cut those two pages off after binding with a razor.
So, this is how the third stage, IV that exists today could have come about. Since it was handled a lot as an enigmatic text, it shows the wears, and the rest of the history is known thanks to the efforts of ReneZ and colleagues and other scholars.
In reading posts in this forum, at some point I was puzzled and began to wonder why scholars are taking for granted the “pages removed” or “pages missing” as just benign incidents that happened to the manuscript? Specific quires have gone “missing” and more significantly, two half bifolia have been literally cut off. Why? Why assume this happened just accidentally. Yes, accidents happen too, but why not take seriously the intentional factor into account?
What else do we need to at least consider that the VM existing today is a socially constructed enigma, not an enigma that originated in the OP or even the CV, other than the private and personal nature of them as a source its author created for personal use o deal with some personal troubles amid public issues of her time?
I am not inclined to see the VM as a modern forgery and have to rely on the trust given by experts on the tests made on the existing incomplete vellum. However, if modifying the CV (when the OP had been destroyed as commonly done at the time) to make it more enigmatic than it was intended to be, evidence for which is present in the surviving incomplete manuscript, in a way, counts for some “forgery” intention, that would be fine with me as a forgery attempt, but not meaning that the vellum itself was created as a hoax. I am not there so far.
The Voynich manuscript has been characterized as the most enigmatic book for 600 years. First, including the original parchment from which it was copied in early 1400s, it can be regarded as having existed in parchment form in 1300s. Second, there is no evidence as of the present to suggest that the manuscript had been enigmatic until the process leading to its sale to Rudolph II. I am not convinced of a 600-year enigma, and that prior history before near to the Rudolph sale is unknown, according to the expert’s own admission. What has become enigmatic is an incomplete manuscript on vellum whose whereabout we can trace to sometime that began from its journey to Rudolph’s archives.
I think Rudolph II may have been duped into buying something he already owned from another archive already in his dominion. The author’s identity had to be removed for that to happen, and in fact there could have been other reasons for suppressing the identity of that author.
Having that broader unit of analysis in mind for the VM, I would roughly periodize its history into three phases.
The first phase, during 1300s, I no longer will call “draft” but in fact “the original parchment” (assuming it was not yet on vellum, that is calfskin, but either on paper or other less expensive sheep or goat skins or a combination of them, more likely the paper parchment since it served as a workbook, but it really does not matter which). It was an author created and used original, used for a long while in her life to deal with personal troubles amid public issues of her time (for now, to make it easier, given some indications in the existing incomplete vellum, I will refer to the author as she/her).
The text may have been offered to the author by specialists per her request, such as astrologers, plants experts and book sources, healing suggestions, medical advice as framed in the cultural context of that time, etc. But the author could have over time added illustrations to make the more abstract and technical material more understandable for her. This was a handbook, written and kept privately and used as a workbook.
It was most likely not bound, since it did not need to be, for personal use. It would have been easier just to use the information sheet at a time, a plant, an astronomical chart, a pharmaceutical making/using instruction, chanting ideas, etc. We owe to Lisa Fagin Davis that idea and good finding (although she was referring to the vellum version, while I am adding that the unbind, sheet-based usage preceded that).
To go to the roof to see the lunar and star maps to plan her next balneological or pharmaceutical treatment, let us say, you don’t need to take plant pages with you, just one sheet or two will do. The texts related to each plant would not have to be on the same page as the plants. As new information was found and creatively drawn and painted about a plant, some text was written on a separate sheet (it could have been on the same sheet, but that did not have to be necessarily always the case, is what I am saying).
There were “boxes” perhaps including various sections. Plants, likely birth or planetary charts (now missing), lunar charts for timely actions, pharmaceutical section, balneological section, a section listing the stars used for the handbook, and a fold-out imagining what the goal was, bringing it all together, perhaps with some magical considerations for wishes to be made and realized (like in astrology, Ferdaria type visions of things that can and are expected to happen, or achievements to be made as depicted in the largest foldout).
I won’t go into more details of the first phase of what I call “Original Parchment” (OP) phase. The author was alive, and likely developed her own, for privacy and other public scrutiny reasons, system of abbreviations, alphabets, some borrowed from standard sets, others entirely made up by her that only she could know what they stand for (letters, words, even thoughts or technical data, etc.). There was no need for “scribes” doing it. She may have received instructions from experts so may have had some texts given to begin with, but expressed them in her own way, adding her illustrations to make the details more tangible for herself, and perhaps for loved ones she was also trying to help.
The second phase is that of the “Complete Vellum” (CV). This is what was most likely prepared around 1400-1450, during a range of time uncovered by the carbon dating tests. Since we don’t have some sections anymore, even some may have been prepared starting earlier, and could have taken several years.
During the second phase, the author was no longer alive, but perhaps by her instructions and prior planning, it was planned to be transferred to the durable vellum. This CV most likely included everything from the OP (original parchment), all the now-missing sections still present. Because the OP was not paginated, neither was this CV, though some scribes doing it could have had some (likely proven wrong) ideas about how to order the folios for possible binding as a collection.
There is no reason to assume that the scribes of the CV had absolutely no idea what language the text was in. The reason is, they may have known who the original author/user was, and just based on that could have guessed its main language. Perhaps they did not know exactly one or another symbol or abbreviation or contraction method, but the CV included information that could have identified the author and background of the OP. This CV was completed at some point in mid 1400s, whereas the OP belonged to the previous century (1300s).
The scribes added their own styles to make the vellum, since now the concern was to make sure all the OP was transferred economically to the vellum. So, texts were included mostly on the same page as the plant images, they used foldouts, etc. For them, it was not a mysterious text, short of some aspects they may have had to transfer by copying from the original, without scrutinizing what they made. Scribes were scribes, after all. Mistakes could have happened, but generally were minimal since they had a PO to copy from.
The third phase I would call the Incomplete Vellum (IV) phases. This is when for various reasons having to do with the interest of selling the vellum to a highest bidder, who ended up being Rudolph II, the CV transitioned to the IV. And this is where the story of the VM becomes very interesting, in my view, resulting in the existing partial “enigmatic” vellum.
Here is a possible hypothetical way this could have happened, at some point after the CV had been completed.
First, they paginated the CV to bind it for the purpose of selling it, and it was done. Although they did not know exactly the best way to put them in order, they did it in a way that was not reasonable, or did it in intentionally distracting way, such as moving some folios of the plant section to the end, moving the stars/recipe section to the end, rather than before the star/moon charts, etc.
However, as they did so and paginated the collection, they began to wonder if the sections in the CV identifying the author could make it less enigmatic, or even give away the author, so to speak. After all, if Rudolph suspected that the manuscript he way buying belonged to an archive already in his dominion, let us say, why would he buy what he already owned and was fetched from a place belonging to his dominion.
So, they said, let’s take the birth/planetary charts out and other identifying quires, including perhaps even anything that could have served as a title page, cipher key (for personal use of the original author), or anything making the text decipherable more easily, out. Then they bounded it.
However, they soon realized two pages related to the Zodiac pages could still give away their intended enigmatic artifact and spoil the sale. So, they had no choice but literally cut those two pages off after binding with a razor.
So, this is how the third stage, IV that exists today could have come about. Since it was handled a lot as an enigmatic text, it shows the wears, and the rest of the history is known thanks to the efforts of ReneZ and colleagues and other scholars.
In reading posts in this forum, at some point I was puzzled and began to wonder why scholars are taking for granted the “pages removed” or “pages missing” as just benign incidents that happened to the manuscript? Specific quires have gone “missing” and more significantly, two half bifolia have been literally cut off. Why? Why assume this happened just accidentally. Yes, accidents happen too, but why not take seriously the intentional factor into account?
What else do we need to at least consider that the VM existing today is a socially constructed enigma, not an enigma that originated in the OP or even the CV, other than the private and personal nature of them as a source its author created for personal use o deal with some personal troubles amid public issues of her time?
I am not inclined to see the VM as a modern forgery and have to rely on the trust given by experts on the tests made on the existing incomplete vellum. However, if modifying the CV (when the OP had been destroyed as commonly done at the time) to make it more enigmatic than it was intended to be, evidence for which is present in the surviving incomplete manuscript, in a way, counts for some “forgery” intention, that would be fine with me as a forgery attempt, but not meaning that the vellum itself was created as a hoax. I am not there so far.
The Voynich manuscript has been characterized as the most enigmatic book for 600 years. First, including the original parchment from which it was copied in early 1400s, it can be regarded as having existed in parchment form in 1300s. Second, there is no evidence as of the present to suggest that the manuscript had been enigmatic until the process leading to its sale to Rudolph II. I am not convinced of a 600-year enigma, and that prior history before near to the Rudolph sale is unknown, according to the expert’s own admission. What has become enigmatic is an incomplete manuscript on vellum whose whereabout we can trace to sometime that began from its journey to Rudolph’s archives.
I think Rudolph II may have been duped into buying something he already owned from another archive already in his dominion. The author’s identity had to be removed for that to happen, and in fact there could have been other reasons for suppressing the identity of that author.