JKP
You are right about the movement of scribes and members of religious orders. This is so much the case, that even if the hand which wrote the quire numbers is one taught in schools or scriptoria around Lake Constance, it would still tell us almost nothing about where our manuscript was made. People just didn't think in terms of the modern definitions of nationality and national borders and didn't need to while Latin was the language everyone knew who knew how to read and write.
You only need read a few biographies to see that: someone is born in Poland, studies in Italy, works in France, and dies in northern Spain.
Someone is born in Dalmatia, travels to study in Greece and in Egypt, then settles in Mallorca before going to North Africa.
Look at Nicholas of Cusa's life, for example. He actively argued in favour of all Christendom's remaining united and retaining Latin as the 'lingua franca'.
Like the assumption of authorship, the theory of a "nationality" for the manuscript is mostly a reflection of modern assumptions being applied without actually seeing if they're appropriate. A monk born in Prague might have served in the Holy Land, or anywhere else his order had a monastery. That's why it's routine to find a German hand in an English-made manuscript, or a Saxon hand in one which was made in Fleury... same through the centuries.
But for me, it doesn't matter where we find the manuscript was made, if we ever do. What bothers me is that a near-obsession with establishing a fairly dubious argument for 'nationality' threatens to distort a balanced study of the manuscript's content, and especially its imagery. IMO
Don,
With regard to 'mer-' figures generally. There are various lines of descent for these images.
One is the "triton" type, which occurs in the Mediterranean from before the rise of Rome and has a notable Irish variety. It also occurs along the major routes to the east, and westwards. It usually has two fish-legs, which the central figure grips. One which is remarkably true to the older figure is in Crowcombe in England
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Another was made for the Colonna family in renaissance italy,
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Then there's the mirror-and-comb holding sort, which properly has only one tail and commonly turns a little to the side.
Then there's the 'Jonah' type. Very popular in early Coptic Christian works, especially textiles and stone. He is always emerging from a fish that is a huge, hostile monster-thingy.
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And then there's Matsya whose fish-part always looks as if it's pretty friendly and whose eyes are normally seen. I'm linking to a modern image, but the historical ones look much the same. It's the one Kircher knew and tried to draw, though he thought the figure a female.
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The interesting thing about Matsya is that he was only worshipped by one or two cult-sites, and both were important centres for foreign traders and trader-settlements.
Don't know if this helps.