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Comparison with BL ms Ashmole 399

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• Comparison with BL ms Ashmole 399

• RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399

  Davidsch > 25-04-2017, 11:44 AM

  Please consider that the "bathing section"  images could show normal daily things such as bathing and nothing more.

• RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399

  Diane > 25-04-2017, 03:08 PM

  - Could one of the moderators please change the thread title to Bodleian MS ASHMOLE 399?
  
  Thank you.

• RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399

  bi3mw > 25-04-2017, 05:05 PM

  (25-04-2017, 09:16 AM)MarcoP Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, the BL description says "urinoscopy". The shape of the container doesn't seem strange to me.

  
  @MarcoP:
  Thanks, this observation is very helpful in another context. Now one of the VMS - folios could show me a clearer overall picture.

• RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399

  Emma May Smith > 25-04-2017, 05:45 PM

  (I was writing very tongue in cheek. Don't worry.)

• RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399

  Diane > 25-04-2017, 06:01 PM

  
  
  Without its label, the subject of these three could be hypothesised as urinoscopy and gynecology too.
  
  Nor do I want to go all feminist, but I might point out that the sub-text to such hypotheses is that imagery of women in this manuscript must in some sense make them passive and objectified: that is the passive object of predominantly male activity and medicine. (Yes, I know there were mid-wives, but I don't think I've ever seen a picture of a woman as physician in a circle of urine bottles, or as author of a fifteenth century text on gynecology, so the point remains).  Unless we're going back to the old notion of the Vms as a version of the Trotula... ?
  
  D'Imperio a troll.  Funniest notion I've seen in a while.  Thanks, Marco.  We need some genuine and pleasant humour in these discussions. Keeps everyone sane, I think.

• RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399

  -JKP- > 25-04-2017, 09:22 PM

  Mary D` Imperio Wrote:It seems strange to me, also, that so many students have become obsessively preoccupied with gynecological or sexual interpretations of the text. The presence of the scattering of quite unexceptionable matronly little nude figures on a small proportion of folios seems to me an entirely insufficient justification for this obsession.

  
  
  There's a lot more than "little nude figures"...
  
  In addition to many womb-like shapes, the sexual references are very explicit. There's an ejaculating penis in the left margin. There are menstrual cycles in a zodiac wheel. There are male/female references to copulation in another zodiac wheel, in a manuscript where penises are often absent.
  
  I don't think it's any stretch to see sexual references.

• RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399

  Koen G > 25-04-2017, 10:10 PM

  I'm all for hidden phallic imagery but I have a really hard time (no pun intended) to see an ejaculating penis in that thing. It's a weird tube with stuff spreading out of it that looks more like dusty wind. The "phallus" then bends back on itself towards a nymph who puts her hand into the tube. She is standing in a empty sardines can.
  
  
  
  What really makes it problematic though, is that very similar pipes can be seen elsewhere in the manuscript, even on the same page - so why should this one be a phallus?
  
  
  It's pipes with a bulbous end emitting stuff, and at the other end there's a woman. So are these hidden sex acts?
  
  Then I agree that there are one or two instances where sex seems to be intended between a male and a female figure, and a few solitary men with large (but mangled ) penises.
  
  All in all the man-woman interaction in the manuscript is limited though. Out of 500 nymphs, how many men are there who interact with a woman (other than looking in her general direction)? If this manuscript was about reproduction, there would be way more. We know the VM is not shy about penises, they are there. And it's not shy to put a man and a woman in a position that might look like copulation. It just hardly does it.
  
  Some women in the Zodiac circles may indeed refer to the menstrual cycle, yet as far as we know this may as well be a purely cultural-linguistic matter. The words for month and menses are related in many languages, obviously, and so would be the concepts of the female cycle and that of the moon. I see very little indication to interpret any of this in a medical or biological way. 
  
  On the contrary, I do see indications that much of it is highly symbolical or metaphorical. The usage of objects is limited to the extent that nymphs only get one object max, and are only allowed to hold it with one hand.
  
  
  Anyway, bottom line is, any sexual references in the VM are as important for understanding the manuscript as, for example, crossbowmen are. They are of interest by themselves, but I just don't see how they can be considered a main theme in the manuscript.

• RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399

  -JKP- > 25-04-2017, 11:03 PM

  Imagine her standing in the testicles and the tube feeding the "penis" as the seminiferous tubules.
  
  Since most of the structures in this section of the manuscript look like something from a dissection table, with many vein/artery-like shapes with liquid coming out of them, it's not much of a stretch to imagine this as an inside/outside image.
  
  Dissection of people was generally not permitted in the 15th century, so I wouldn't expect drawings of bodily processes to be any more explicit than this.
  
  
  Also, in the medieval mind, body parts were connected to the stars. Hence "zodiac man" came into existence.

• RE: Comparison with BL ms Asmhole 399

  MarcoP > 26-04-2017, 11:13 AM

  (25-04-2017, 10:10 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm all for hidden phallic imagery but I have a really hard time (no pun intended) to see an ejaculating penis in that thing. It's a weird tube with stuff spreading out of it that looks more like dusty wind. The "phallus" then bends back on itself towards a nymph who puts her hand into the tube. She is standing in a empty sardines can.
  
  
  
  What really makes it problematic though, is that very similar pipes can be seen elsewhere in the manuscript, even on the same page - so why should this one be a phallus?
  

  
  Hi Koen, I agree that it is difficult to pinpoint specific illustrations to specific internal organs (but the “intestines” in detail i seem rather plausible to me).
  
  In more generic terms, the idea is that there could be some similarity between the VMS and BL Ashmole 399. Since the BL manuscript discusses pregnancy in pages illustrated by scarcely-naturalistic, sometimes tube-like, images of various internal organs, one can think that also the VMS discusses pregnancy and the various tubes are symbolic (or at least abstracted) illustrations of internal organs.
  
  

  (25-04-2017, 10:10 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's pipes with a bulbous end emitting stuff, and at the other end there's a woman. So are these hidden sex acts?

  
  It seems that the BL doesn't illustrate sex acts either. I don't think such illustrations are necessarily to be expected in a late medieval manuscript discussing human reproduction, but this is a field I am not really familiar with.
  
  

  (25-04-2017, 10:10 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Some women in the Zodiac circles may indeed refer to the menstrual cycle, yet as far as we know this may as well be a purely cultural-linguistic matter. The words for month and menses are related in many languages, obviously, and so would be the concepts of the female cycle and that of the moon. I see very little indication to interpret any of this in a medical or biological way.

  
  Yes, these things are far from obvious. Alain Touwaide (2016) mentions the risk of deception for the modern man, who often fails to see the strict connection between astrology and medicine in medieval culture (translation mine):
  
  This part [the “herbal” section] is followed by a second one, made up of tables, astral wheels and other zodiacal data that evoke astrology and, consequently, astronomy and the obscure mechanics of heavenly spheres, more than the sub-lunar world of human beings and medicinal plants. One must not be deceived by the strong contrast between the two cycles of illustrations. The contents of this part present the tools used by physicians and healers to read in the stars the present and future medical history of their patients, to attempt to decipher the evolution of illnesses and foresee their resolution, or also to guess the future lives of newborn children and find the signs of their possible uncommon destinies.
  
  I also found Marraccini's parallel with Glasgow ms Ferguson 6 illuminating. As you say, the relation between month and menses is obvious and widespread, yet this connection is not often made explicit in illustrations.
  
  

  (25-04-2017, 10:10 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Anyway, bottom line is, any sexual references in the VM are as important for understanding the manuscript as, for example, crossbowmen are. They are of interest by themselves, but I just don't see how they can be considered a main theme in the manuscript.

  
  It seems to me that you are comparing different things. While sex / gynecology is seen as a candidate for the meaning of part of the ms, the crossbowman is a concrete symbol for a specific concept (the zodiac sign Sagittarius).
  
  The crossbowman is objectively there, while the sexual / gynecological interpretation is a hypothesis that has been put forward by several researchers.
  
  You could compare the tubes with the crossbow. Or you could compare gynecology and astronomy. Since nobody ever suggested that the VMS is largely about weapons, I don't think the crossbow can be usefully compared with gynecology.
  
  The sexual / gynecology hypothesis should be compared with other hypotheses. For instance, one could compare the idea with the interpretation of the balneological section as illustrations of Ptolemy's constellations. Simplifying for argument's sake, what we have here is a mix of tubes and human figures. The tubes could suggest gynecology, the human figures could suggest personifications of various kinds (e.g. the constellations). Or they could be literal bathing women with literal hydraulic tubes (as suggested by Davidsch above).

• RE: Comparison with BL ms Ashmole 399

  Koen G > 26-04-2017, 12:01 PM

  Marco, I mostly agree with your last post. My post was mainly motivated by an attempt to explain D'Imperio's categorical rejection of "gynecological or sexual interpretations of the text". She says that "many students" were exploring such avenues, so I can imagine her frustration if especially "sexual" interpretations of the entire manuscript were developed from those few instances which might reference sex acts / ejaculation and a few wombs. I can also imagine one would prefer a more general "biology" interpretation rather than a strictly gynecological one, since the body parts people think to recognize include intestines and collar bones.
  
  I agree that these are all subjective interpretations with their pros and cons.
  
  One thing I'd like to stress as well is that the most "biological" folio is only one, 77. Mostly the verso side, though I guess there's a biologically looking thing on the recto as well. This happens to be a folio which I can't explain in terms of constellations, although the parallel with Andromeda has been noted by others before me. I wouldn't be surprised if the other figures deal with another theme though. My first hypothesis would be meteorology, though I haven't studied this yet. Constellation folios I'm relatively confident about are 76, 79 and 80 all on both sides. Folio 82 seems to mark a transition into meteorology and 83 as well.
  
  (Obviously I subscribe to the idea that Q13 is out of order and may have originally been two or even three sections).
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