No text, but a visual code

[Stefan Wirtz_2]

[..]I appreciate you doing so now without thinking I’ve lost my mind.

Wouldn't say these were my exact words or thoughts;
as far as I remember, you were and are very convinced of Panofsky, while he seemed not to be such convinced about his own ideas to VMS. 

[..] The female figures in Quire 13 are the same as those in the zodiac, and they are holding stars. And, as you know, there are many stars drawn in the codex[..]
Some of these figures are inside tubes; they are not bathing in barrels, because there are figures that are clothed.

Yes and no.
There is a difference between tubes and tubs/"barrels". Some few of these barrels are capsized (like the whole inner ring of pisces/mars zodiac). They are clearly elaborated as vessels with a closed bottom, so I would recognize them as tubs or, just barrels. Not tubes.
That's what I get when I see it, with nearly no interpretation necessary here.

Yes, they are clothed: but in many cultures bathing with full gear of clothing is normal in public bathing, not being in full nudity.
Yes, the few clothed ladies are very different and interesting among all those nymphs, and they are very rarely discussed: I cannot do that here, but they are quite outstanding.
But no, full cloth does not exclude the option of "just bathing".
Even more, several churches were and are doing adult baptisms with (short) full drowning of fully clothed people.
So no, that is also no proof for "no water, no bathing, no baptizing".

But I would agree that all those zodiac ladies are standing, sitting or squatting dry in that tubs; just for the reason that some of the barrels are lying on a side -- enhancing such emptiness to all barrels is a conclusion or, let's say, an interpretation, but it should be one with a quite acceptable logic.

[..]and another—which I find more revealing—in which we see the figures with their feet inside tubes. And not just their feet, for many of them also have their hands inside tubes. To me, this represents them traveling through those tubes, because I conceive of the figures as an embodiment of astral influence.

You will understand that the conclusion/interpretation of hidden hands and feet as "tube travelling" seems not to follow any acceptable logic in my way of viewing this.

I remarked at an earlier occasion that drawings of hands and feet are non-trivial, as they are time-consuming and rather difficult to draw -- everybody can immediately recognize unnatural imagery or anatomically impossible sketches.
So the artist had 500+ figures and a problem with 2,000+ details = I think he was just cutting corners by chosing motives with many "hidden" parts.

Look at the bottom left of f80v: there is a figure that appears to have just emerged from the tube and is falling into the pond below.

I don't get which one you mean here.
This detail?



Appears like Lady A is simply showering, Lady B is a by-stander,
Lady C is chilling and really enjoying herself in the water.

What do you see or mean there?

Just look at how the figures are aligned; they seem to be filing past one after another. It isn't an image of people enjoying themselves in the water.

I do.
To me, they look more like a polonaise, some ritual dance or even just something like modern water-treading. Would not be such fun at least in the last two cases.

I believe it metaphorically represents a continuous astral influence on Earth. And the scenes capture medieval humor very well.

At all, they could more likely be a rural hen party in a waterbound medieval culture than some astral metaphor.