RE: Masterpiece?
-JKP- > 28-07-2020, 12:10 AM
I had not thought of that possibility (that it might be a presentation-style manuscript created to enter a secret society). I have sometimes wondered if it was created by someone already in a secret society, but I never thought that it might be to demonstrate worthiness to enter a society. That seems like a reasonable possibility. It could be difficult to get into those societies if you were not part of the elite.
My thinking was along different lines, but maybe not too different... I was thinking maybe a family project... maybe created as a "résumé" to get eldest son (or some other family member) into an apprenticeship or into a guild/scriptorium. Apprenticeships and memberships could be challenging to procure, especially in a town far away from the person's place of birth. Maybe it was a presentation project to win patronage from a king or other high noble.
Creation of the VMS demonstrates stamina (a very important trait for a scribe), drawing skills, various forms of textures, plants, design motifs, planning skills, use of a compass, etc., etc., ability to work with larger sheets of skin (foldout pages).
If the person looking for the apprenticeship were in his or her teens (there were a few female scribes), then the fact that it's not perfect would not matter, it would demonstrate that the person is trainable.
There is one fairly big problem with this idea. A book of cipher-like glyphs could be perceived as being related to the occult arts and if someone reported it, it could get you thrown in jail (or worse). So it doesn't seem like something you would show to anyone you didn't know well, especially in another town.
I have also wondered whether a small group of university students made it... perhaps as a thesis project.
There are small hints that it was never finished. There were several waves of plague in the 15th century and numerous wars... Polish, Frisian, Burgundian, Bavarian, Lombardic, Praguian... maybe something interrupted the process when it was near completion.
Or perhaps it was good enough for whatever purpose it was intended to serve as is.