15-02-2026, 02:21 AM
1.
In this post I want to introduce some aspects of the life of the Countess Margaret of Tyrol (1318-1369) to show, to the extent possible, how in my view they can provide a backdrop to the motivation behind authoring and leaving behind a legacy work such as the Voynich manuscript.
Please don’t expect to see detailed engagement with the Voynich manuscript itself in this post. This is just to show why, by the end of her life, she would have been deeply motivated to leave behind a legacy-manuscript such as the Voynich manuscript. I will hopefully elaborate more on manuscript linkages to her life in later posts.
Given the length of what follows, I am just sectioning them off with numbers, roughly thematically. Hope it helps a bit.
2.
Her life-story is very odd and, in many ways, both incredibly sad and demonstrative of her courage and steadfastness despite lifelong enemies surrounding her.
In a way she was the target of some of the most slanderous attacks as a woman in European history, from which I think she still came out victorious in standing up for herself and legacy. In my view the Voynich manuscript can be regarded as her answer to history and what she endured.
The best way I can describe it is that she faced a lifelong threat of “legacy massacre”—one that in fact was realized sadly to a great extent, except that due to her acumen, in her final years, she managed to take certain actions, that could have included leaving behind a legacy manuscript that has survived despite the historical odds in the Voynich manuscript.
She also succeeded in her final acts in choosing for her legacy interests between the lesser of the evil foes surrounding her, abdicating to a side that at least (albeit less directly) continued her blood line, which was important for her in those times.
3.
When I originally researched her biography, I had arrived at the notion that despite the challenges she faced, she ended her life in a sort of “comfortable retirement” following her abdication of powers in 1363.
But now I think that she spent her post-abdication final 5-6 years in Vienna in a sort of “golden cage” in exile from her beloved Tyrol, having been betrayed literally by all around her amid a legacy massacre.
The decision she made to abdicate to the Hapsburgs was the lesser of all evils, in her view, and in that sense, she stamped her own preference on the circumstances. But her final years were spent in exile, preventing her from living in her homeland in Tyrol.
In this sense, the Voynich manuscript can be regarded as a way of celebrating and telling her botanical, astrological, spiritual, and “mother nature” worldview and (in my view Franciscan leaning) Christian faith and life-story. It highlights her achievements as a keepsake for a message she wished to pass on to future generations.
4.
This, for me, explains why she would have been extremely motivated to leave behind a manuscript that would independently tell her life’s story and she planned that it be put to more durable vellum several decades later (in early 1400s) when she felt her enemies would had passed away by then.
The original parchment she used and finalized in 1300s may have already begun showing its age and it makes sense that she would plan its being put to more durable vellum posthumously. She would have been inclined to present her manuscript text in such form that would not be easily deciphered, even though its association with her would have been noticed given some information given in the manuscript images at least.
I am now strongly inclined to believe that she would not have risked allowing others, especially unknown hired scribes later to be assigned posthumously, to interpret and “translate,” in cipher or not, her text during the posthumous vellum production. I think she would have wanted to make sure the text is as ciphered or expressed in her preferred language(s) and dialects as she would have wanted it to be, and the scribes later were merely expected to transfer them to vellum.
Even, in the likelihood that the later scribes could understand it, the ciphering was not something they had to perform from scratch, but they would have been expected to transfer to the vellum what was in Margaret’s original parchment—of course any negligence or errors they made in the process on their own withstanding.
I think the missing Capricorn and Aquarius Zodiac charts may have in fact been major foldouts making graphic and textual (in cipher) illustrations of what transpired in her final years following her abdication, and the losses of relatives she suffered around that time. If so, I would not have been surprised for those Zodiac months to be also split into 15/15 segments amid fold-outs for more focus. If so, unfortunately all that now have gone missing.
I am inclined to believe that the removals were done in Medieval (rather than modern) times on purpose to suppress her identity, whatever being their motivation (including making it more marketable as an enigmatic book).
The Voynich manuscript is, in my view, a manuscript that has been tampered with in terms of removal of sections. Apart from removing an entire (likely planetary astrological charts) section in quire 8, the literal cutting of Capricorn and Aquarius charts pages with razor is its most glaring evidence.
I don’t know what else one would need to consider the cutting out of those pages as a possible “smoking gun,” and “crime scene” evidence, whatever the reasons may have been (i.e., identity suppression and/or marketing of an enigmatic text).
5.
Countess Margaret of Tyrol (1318-1369), also known as Margaret “Maultasch” (some regarding the latter as a label for slander, meaning pocket-mouth, others believing it is taken from a castle she was associated with) was born in 1318 in Bolzano (now in Italy, then in South Germany) to a house of Gorizia in the Bavarian-Austrian Meinhardiner lineage/dynasty lineage.
She would have identified herself above all as Tyrolian, and from the House of Gorizia, I think, but heritage-wise would have associated herself as a blend Bohemian (in terms of ancestry) and Bavarian (in terms of political associations). Her father had been King of Bohemia during 1306-1310.
She was highly well-educated to read and speak Latin (as an official language of diplomacy and for legal matters) and Middle High German (Bavarian-Austrian dialect). She must have been familiar with South Bavarian in Tyrol and Corinthia regions, and local dialects such as Ladin. She may have even spoken old French, given it was also a language of nobility across Europe around then.
She may have even spoken Slovenian, given the regional context of her upbringing as a member of the House of Gorizia. To speak to the local population, she would have needed that, from what I have learned.
Her legacy was up for grabs by all those surrounding her lineage, because her family controlled the most important Alpine passes. Basically, Luxembourgs, Wittlesbachs, and Hapsburgs wanted to take over her legacy because the Alpine passes were strategic geopolitical assets. The strategic location of Tyrol as a bridge region also explains why she grew up in a deeply multilingual cultural context.
You can research her story online of course. But I will try to give a schematic overview of what happened to her, the times she lived and how she still persevered. I am new to researching her life myself, so those of you who know better please feel welcome to correct any errors I make in the following.
6.
At 12, she was arrange-married in 1330 to a four-years-younger John Henry (1322-1375), the Magrave of Moravia, who was a Luxembourg, presumably so that her legacy could be shared and passed on through them.
She had an older sister, Adelaide, who would have been the sole heir. But Adelaide became chronically ill (in my view, suspiciously, looking back from what later happened) and thus was unable to carry on as sole heir. She died childless and rather young.
So, from very young age Margaret was recognized as her parents’ sole heir. But, in the process things did not go as planned.
First, she ended up hating John Henry, and feelings were mutual, but not all for personal reasons. She began suspecting that the young boy, as they grew up together after being married formally in 1330 (her age being 12, him 8!), was not consummating the marriage (even though he became known as promiscuous with others in time).
Her suspicions were not just personal but legacy related, however, since lack of children meant John Henry would have overtaken her legacy without any of her own blood line continuing.
So, in 1341, as a final measure amid their disputes, she locked him out of a castle after he had gone hunting, and through her lawyers, asked for divorce, arguing that he had been rendered impotent through magic.
It seems in those times that reason was used in such situations. Whether she meant magic was used or not, it is hard to tell, but the very suspicion to me suggests that not only nobles, but even the church, regarded magic as a cause as plausible. That would have implied, perhaps, using some plants for the purpose. This for me also tells that she would have been interested in the topic of magic herself, to ward it off, I assume, but more broadly also.
But the church was not cooperative and the Franciscan William Occam, who was in exile in her region at the time, supported her case on legal ground, setting one of the early examples of civil rights in marital issues.
But she did not give up and decided to marry Louis V, Duke of Bavaria (a Wittlesbach) instead, even when the church had not agreed with the termination of her first marriage (for political reasons as well, in the interests of Luxembourgs, I think). So, without her first marriage having been officially terminated, she married her second husband.
Her second marriage was eventually recognized officially by the church fully in 1359 (a process that started in 1349), the (unofficial) marriage having taken place in 1342.
7.
Her second husband, Louis V was the eldest son of King Louis IV of Bavaria/Germany (Wittlesbach line), and the father for his own interests supported the marriage, since it would mean her legacy would be incorporated into his.
They had a better marriage, and from what I have learned, they had four children, two daughters and two sons.
But the two daughters died in infancy (although given illness and high mortality rates and epidemics of the time, there may have been natural causes, in light of what later transpired, again, one can’t be sure). In any case, that means, no offsprings by way of daughters.
But of the two sons, the older, Hermann, "died" in 1360 (born before 1344). Then her husband, “died” just a year later in 1361, and then her only son left, Meinhard III (born 1344) who would have been her sole heir, “died” two years later in 1363 (19 years old). The circumstances of her only son and heir’s death is also odd; apparently he caught a fever and died while bathing as a cure!
I find the timeline of all these deaths as suspicious and telling of how poisons may have been used to eliminate adversaries in those times. Without even suspecting it, they just died “of illness” in a few years from one another other, around the time formal successions of legacy were to occur, following the marriage of her last son, in fact. Mysterious “political” deaths were not uncommon in those times, of course, but the timeline of how they happened in her life seems odd. And of course we have a reason to be focusing on these events happening in the the Tyrol and broader region.
8.
With the last son’s death, basically all of Countess Margaret’s own Gorizia-Wittelsbach line ended. But the brother of her deceased husband begun a campaign to overthrow her rule, and this was not acceptable to her, since it would mean nothing of her own family line, even distant, would have continued her legacy.
So, she opted for the lesser of the evils of abdicating to Rudolf IV of the Hapsburgs, in a treaty signed in 1363. This required that she leave for Vienna to spend her final years there, away from Tyrol. She received a comfortable living arrangement, though it was basically a golden cage, in exile.
What is strangest (and must have deeply hurt her) and telling of the double-crossing nature of all the foes she faced is that her son’s young widow (named Margaret of Austria) ended up marrying John Henry, Countess Margaret’s first husband!
The widow (Margaret of Austria) was a sister of Rudolf IV, whose father, Albert II of Austria had favored the marriage of Maultasch’s son to his daughter. She married Maultasch’s son in 1358. She was 12 when she married Maultasch’s son, aged 14, at the time. The son died in 1363. In 1365, his widow (Margaret of Austria) married John Henry (Maultasch’s first husband). In 1365, her brother, Rudolf IV, who was regarded a powerful Hapsburg on the rise, “died” from a “fever.” Then, oddly, in 1366, the widow also died! So, Margaret Maultasch had observed all this in her exile in Vienna, before she died herself in 1369.
9.
Although the Luxembourgs (by way of John Henry) benefited from the above in the short-term, in the long-term the Hapsburgs were strengthened. Hapsburgs took over not only her legacy but also double-crossed her with the Luxembourgs, and in the long term gained the upper hand over them, as the Luxembourg’s influence faded by the 1430s.
For Countess Margaret who had cousins among the Hapsburgs, despite all the losses and humiliations suffered, this would have been a lesser of the evils than her legacy being taken over by her second husband’s brother, being a Wittelsbach. At least she was abdicating to a lineage that included her bloodline in part.
From 1365-1369, she spent her time away from Tyrol, having lost her (second) husband, all her children, witnessing her bride marrying her first husband! Like a domino, all her closest relatives and others around her “died.”
I think her “retirement” years could have provided an opportunity for her to put her final touches to a botanical, medicinal, astrological, and spiritual handbook she had used in her life, through which she also made her peace with her faith and God as well before she died in 1369 in Vienna, where she is buried.
In this post I want to introduce some aspects of the life of the Countess Margaret of Tyrol (1318-1369) to show, to the extent possible, how in my view they can provide a backdrop to the motivation behind authoring and leaving behind a legacy work such as the Voynich manuscript.
Please don’t expect to see detailed engagement with the Voynich manuscript itself in this post. This is just to show why, by the end of her life, she would have been deeply motivated to leave behind a legacy-manuscript such as the Voynich manuscript. I will hopefully elaborate more on manuscript linkages to her life in later posts.
Given the length of what follows, I am just sectioning them off with numbers, roughly thematically. Hope it helps a bit.
2.
Her life-story is very odd and, in many ways, both incredibly sad and demonstrative of her courage and steadfastness despite lifelong enemies surrounding her.
In a way she was the target of some of the most slanderous attacks as a woman in European history, from which I think she still came out victorious in standing up for herself and legacy. In my view the Voynich manuscript can be regarded as her answer to history and what she endured.
The best way I can describe it is that she faced a lifelong threat of “legacy massacre”—one that in fact was realized sadly to a great extent, except that due to her acumen, in her final years, she managed to take certain actions, that could have included leaving behind a legacy manuscript that has survived despite the historical odds in the Voynich manuscript.
She also succeeded in her final acts in choosing for her legacy interests between the lesser of the evil foes surrounding her, abdicating to a side that at least (albeit less directly) continued her blood line, which was important for her in those times.
3.
When I originally researched her biography, I had arrived at the notion that despite the challenges she faced, she ended her life in a sort of “comfortable retirement” following her abdication of powers in 1363.
But now I think that she spent her post-abdication final 5-6 years in Vienna in a sort of “golden cage” in exile from her beloved Tyrol, having been betrayed literally by all around her amid a legacy massacre.
The decision she made to abdicate to the Hapsburgs was the lesser of all evils, in her view, and in that sense, she stamped her own preference on the circumstances. But her final years were spent in exile, preventing her from living in her homeland in Tyrol.
In this sense, the Voynich manuscript can be regarded as a way of celebrating and telling her botanical, astrological, spiritual, and “mother nature” worldview and (in my view Franciscan leaning) Christian faith and life-story. It highlights her achievements as a keepsake for a message she wished to pass on to future generations.
4.
This, for me, explains why she would have been extremely motivated to leave behind a manuscript that would independently tell her life’s story and she planned that it be put to more durable vellum several decades later (in early 1400s) when she felt her enemies would had passed away by then.
The original parchment she used and finalized in 1300s may have already begun showing its age and it makes sense that she would plan its being put to more durable vellum posthumously. She would have been inclined to present her manuscript text in such form that would not be easily deciphered, even though its association with her would have been noticed given some information given in the manuscript images at least.
I am now strongly inclined to believe that she would not have risked allowing others, especially unknown hired scribes later to be assigned posthumously, to interpret and “translate,” in cipher or not, her text during the posthumous vellum production. I think she would have wanted to make sure the text is as ciphered or expressed in her preferred language(s) and dialects as she would have wanted it to be, and the scribes later were merely expected to transfer them to vellum.
Even, in the likelihood that the later scribes could understand it, the ciphering was not something they had to perform from scratch, but they would have been expected to transfer to the vellum what was in Margaret’s original parchment—of course any negligence or errors they made in the process on their own withstanding.
I think the missing Capricorn and Aquarius Zodiac charts may have in fact been major foldouts making graphic and textual (in cipher) illustrations of what transpired in her final years following her abdication, and the losses of relatives she suffered around that time. If so, I would not have been surprised for those Zodiac months to be also split into 15/15 segments amid fold-outs for more focus. If so, unfortunately all that now have gone missing.
I am inclined to believe that the removals were done in Medieval (rather than modern) times on purpose to suppress her identity, whatever being their motivation (including making it more marketable as an enigmatic book).
The Voynich manuscript is, in my view, a manuscript that has been tampered with in terms of removal of sections. Apart from removing an entire (likely planetary astrological charts) section in quire 8, the literal cutting of Capricorn and Aquarius charts pages with razor is its most glaring evidence.
I don’t know what else one would need to consider the cutting out of those pages as a possible “smoking gun,” and “crime scene” evidence, whatever the reasons may have been (i.e., identity suppression and/or marketing of an enigmatic text).
5.
Countess Margaret of Tyrol (1318-1369), also known as Margaret “Maultasch” (some regarding the latter as a label for slander, meaning pocket-mouth, others believing it is taken from a castle she was associated with) was born in 1318 in Bolzano (now in Italy, then in South Germany) to a house of Gorizia in the Bavarian-Austrian Meinhardiner lineage/dynasty lineage.
She would have identified herself above all as Tyrolian, and from the House of Gorizia, I think, but heritage-wise would have associated herself as a blend Bohemian (in terms of ancestry) and Bavarian (in terms of political associations). Her father had been King of Bohemia during 1306-1310.
She was highly well-educated to read and speak Latin (as an official language of diplomacy and for legal matters) and Middle High German (Bavarian-Austrian dialect). She must have been familiar with South Bavarian in Tyrol and Corinthia regions, and local dialects such as Ladin. She may have even spoken old French, given it was also a language of nobility across Europe around then.
She may have even spoken Slovenian, given the regional context of her upbringing as a member of the House of Gorizia. To speak to the local population, she would have needed that, from what I have learned.
Her legacy was up for grabs by all those surrounding her lineage, because her family controlled the most important Alpine passes. Basically, Luxembourgs, Wittlesbachs, and Hapsburgs wanted to take over her legacy because the Alpine passes were strategic geopolitical assets. The strategic location of Tyrol as a bridge region also explains why she grew up in a deeply multilingual cultural context.
You can research her story online of course. But I will try to give a schematic overview of what happened to her, the times she lived and how she still persevered. I am new to researching her life myself, so those of you who know better please feel welcome to correct any errors I make in the following.
6.
At 12, she was arrange-married in 1330 to a four-years-younger John Henry (1322-1375), the Magrave of Moravia, who was a Luxembourg, presumably so that her legacy could be shared and passed on through them.
She had an older sister, Adelaide, who would have been the sole heir. But Adelaide became chronically ill (in my view, suspiciously, looking back from what later happened) and thus was unable to carry on as sole heir. She died childless and rather young.
So, from very young age Margaret was recognized as her parents’ sole heir. But, in the process things did not go as planned.
First, she ended up hating John Henry, and feelings were mutual, but not all for personal reasons. She began suspecting that the young boy, as they grew up together after being married formally in 1330 (her age being 12, him 8!), was not consummating the marriage (even though he became known as promiscuous with others in time).
Her suspicions were not just personal but legacy related, however, since lack of children meant John Henry would have overtaken her legacy without any of her own blood line continuing.
So, in 1341, as a final measure amid their disputes, she locked him out of a castle after he had gone hunting, and through her lawyers, asked for divorce, arguing that he had been rendered impotent through magic.
It seems in those times that reason was used in such situations. Whether she meant magic was used or not, it is hard to tell, but the very suspicion to me suggests that not only nobles, but even the church, regarded magic as a cause as plausible. That would have implied, perhaps, using some plants for the purpose. This for me also tells that she would have been interested in the topic of magic herself, to ward it off, I assume, but more broadly also.
But the church was not cooperative and the Franciscan William Occam, who was in exile in her region at the time, supported her case on legal ground, setting one of the early examples of civil rights in marital issues.
But she did not give up and decided to marry Louis V, Duke of Bavaria (a Wittlesbach) instead, even when the church had not agreed with the termination of her first marriage (for political reasons as well, in the interests of Luxembourgs, I think). So, without her first marriage having been officially terminated, she married her second husband.
Her second marriage was eventually recognized officially by the church fully in 1359 (a process that started in 1349), the (unofficial) marriage having taken place in 1342.
7.
Her second husband, Louis V was the eldest son of King Louis IV of Bavaria/Germany (Wittlesbach line), and the father for his own interests supported the marriage, since it would mean her legacy would be incorporated into his.
They had a better marriage, and from what I have learned, they had four children, two daughters and two sons.
But the two daughters died in infancy (although given illness and high mortality rates and epidemics of the time, there may have been natural causes, in light of what later transpired, again, one can’t be sure). In any case, that means, no offsprings by way of daughters.
But of the two sons, the older, Hermann, "died" in 1360 (born before 1344). Then her husband, “died” just a year later in 1361, and then her only son left, Meinhard III (born 1344) who would have been her sole heir, “died” two years later in 1363 (19 years old). The circumstances of her only son and heir’s death is also odd; apparently he caught a fever and died while bathing as a cure!
I find the timeline of all these deaths as suspicious and telling of how poisons may have been used to eliminate adversaries in those times. Without even suspecting it, they just died “of illness” in a few years from one another other, around the time formal successions of legacy were to occur, following the marriage of her last son, in fact. Mysterious “political” deaths were not uncommon in those times, of course, but the timeline of how they happened in her life seems odd. And of course we have a reason to be focusing on these events happening in the the Tyrol and broader region.
8.
With the last son’s death, basically all of Countess Margaret’s own Gorizia-Wittelsbach line ended. But the brother of her deceased husband begun a campaign to overthrow her rule, and this was not acceptable to her, since it would mean nothing of her own family line, even distant, would have continued her legacy.
So, she opted for the lesser of the evils of abdicating to Rudolf IV of the Hapsburgs, in a treaty signed in 1363. This required that she leave for Vienna to spend her final years there, away from Tyrol. She received a comfortable living arrangement, though it was basically a golden cage, in exile.
What is strangest (and must have deeply hurt her) and telling of the double-crossing nature of all the foes she faced is that her son’s young widow (named Margaret of Austria) ended up marrying John Henry, Countess Margaret’s first husband!
The widow (Margaret of Austria) was a sister of Rudolf IV, whose father, Albert II of Austria had favored the marriage of Maultasch’s son to his daughter. She married Maultasch’s son in 1358. She was 12 when she married Maultasch’s son, aged 14, at the time. The son died in 1363. In 1365, his widow (Margaret of Austria) married John Henry (Maultasch’s first husband). In 1365, her brother, Rudolf IV, who was regarded a powerful Hapsburg on the rise, “died” from a “fever.” Then, oddly, in 1366, the widow also died! So, Margaret Maultasch had observed all this in her exile in Vienna, before she died herself in 1369.
9.
Although the Luxembourgs (by way of John Henry) benefited from the above in the short-term, in the long-term the Hapsburgs were strengthened. Hapsburgs took over not only her legacy but also double-crossed her with the Luxembourgs, and in the long term gained the upper hand over them, as the Luxembourg’s influence faded by the 1430s.
For Countess Margaret who had cousins among the Hapsburgs, despite all the losses and humiliations suffered, this would have been a lesser of the evils than her legacy being taken over by her second husband’s brother, being a Wittelsbach. At least she was abdicating to a lineage that included her bloodline in part.
From 1365-1369, she spent her time away from Tyrol, having lost her (second) husband, all her children, witnessing her bride marrying her first husband! Like a domino, all her closest relatives and others around her “died.”
I think her “retirement” years could have provided an opportunity for her to put her final touches to a botanical, medicinal, astrological, and spiritual handbook she had used in her life, through which she also made her peace with her faith and God as well before she died in 1369 in Vienna, where she is buried.