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Months names are all one off?
- Months names are all one off?
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Months names are all one off?
Jorge_Stolfi > 28-05-2025, 03:54 AM
Currently each sign of the Zodiac starts around the 20th of one month and ends around the 20th of the next month. I suppose that these dates were chosen so that the solstices and equinoxes fall on sign boundaries. Is that correct?
So the VMS Zodiac is already strange in that the month name written under each sign's icon is only 2/3 correct. Thus for instance Sagittarius is labeled "December", but 10 days of that sign are in November. So the correct label should have been "November-December".
However, I have run into two sources that state that "in the Middle Ages" each sign started on the 1st of the month, instead of on the 20th. Unfortunately those articles did not say when the sync with the equinoxes took place. If the switch happened after the VMS was written, all those written month names are one month off. namely, the label under Sagittarius should have been "November", not "December". And ditto for all other months
Anyway, it seems that the VMS month names were written after the Zodiac sync.
Thoughts?
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Months names are all one off?
MarcoP > 28-05-2025, 07:52 AM
Hi Jorge,
It’s great to read you on the forum!
I guess the subject is related to the precession of the equinoxes.
I could find that Lambert of Saint-Omer (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., 1100 ca, 90v) said that “the sun enters Aries in the middle of March and exits it in the middle of April” (unluckily sign names arietem, taurum, geminos are badly faded in the Ghent manuscript). Transcription from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., p.655.
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RE: Months names are all one off?
Koen G > 28-05-2025, 08:05 AM
Welcome to the forum, Jorge.
It's a good observation, I hadn't thought about this before. It's true that in books of hours for example, the signs are all one month earlier. Virgo should be August instead of September etc.
In many manuscripts, you get the labors of the month alternating with Zodiac signs. Might this have caused some confusion in the writer? Maybe we should assume that all people knew which signs belonged to which month. But then I would object that this person felt the need to write the month names with the signs. This is not something you do if you already know them by heart.
Alternatively, the writer did know what they were doing and had something in mind like in Marco's example. In that case, writing down the main month may have been required. -
RE: Months names are all one off?
ReneZ > 28-05-2025, 09:24 AM
(28-05-2025, 03:54 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Currently each sign of the Zodiac starts around the 20th of one month and ends around the 20th of the next month. I suppose that these dates were chosen so that the solstices and equinoxes fall on sign boundaries. Is that correct?
[...]
Anyway, it seems that the VMS month names were written after the Zodiac sync.
Welcome Jorge!
I cannot explain this offset, but one thing is certain: the spring (vernal) equinox was always supposed to be the point where the sun enters the sign of Aries. Precession only affects the relationship between the sign and the constellation after which it was originally named, but this plays no role here.
The date when this happens had moved back about 10 days (to around 12 March -ish) by the 15th centuty, until this was fixed by the Gregorian reform. But also that does not explain the offset. It even makes things worse: only 1 third of the month written in the MS coincides with the sign where it is written.
I may misunderstand what you mean with "zodiac sync" but there was no such sync.
Not long ago, there was a post by @nablator about the very different French calendars in the past (IIRC), which may explain, but still, the main books of hours, expecially also from France, had (e.g.) July correspond with Leo, not with Cancer.
One correspondence that works is that the first day of each month (as written in the MS) is during the sign where it is written.
And less seriously, but still true: the month names here in Thailand are named after zodiac signs, and they follow the correspondence in the Voynich MS... -
RE: Months names are all one off?
Jorge_Stolfi > 28-05-2025, 10:45 AM
Thanks all for the comments. I definitely should learn more about the history of the Zodiac AND of the division of the year into months. Meanwhile, here is what I assume:
At some point in antiquity, astronomers divided the astronomical Zodiac (the path the Sun seems to follow relative to the stars) into 12 equal sectors of 30 degrees, with the boundaries aligned with the equinoxes and solstices; and grouped the stars around that path into 12 constellations with fanciful names and mythologies. At that time, for instance, the Zodiac sector that eventually became called Aries started (as it does today) at the position of the Sun on the Spring equinox. They then divided the solar year of 365 days into 12 months of 28/30/31 days, which at the time were synchronized with that division of the Zodiac, give a day or two; so that the month we now call March (which then was month #1 of the year) also started at the spring equinox, give a day or two. So, at the time, the period when the Sun was in each sector of the Zodiac was just one whole month. And so people naturally got used to that association between signs and months: "Aries is March, Taurus is April, etc".
However, after many centuries without leap years or with imperfect leap years, the current month (defined by counting 28/30/31 days) and the Zodiac sector where the Sun currently found itself (tied to the equinoxes and the stars) got out of sync. The Gregorian reform of the calendar corrected only part of the discrepancy, the amount that had became obvious over the past few centuries, and perfected the leap year formula so as to eliminate the drift, but not the shift. So it was still the case that the Sun entered the Zodiac sector of Aries around March 20th, not on March 1st. Astronomers knew about this shift, but common folk and simplistic popular astrologers did not know or care -- and so they continued to equate each astrological sign with its original month, as they had been doing for centuries. Namely they continued to equate Aries with Match, Taurus with April, etc. -- well into the "Middle Ages".
It was only a few centuries ago ("after the Middle Ages") that astrologers, and then the general public, chose to make their art closer to the astronomical reality, and redefined the period of each astrological sign to be the period when the Sun is in the corresponding sector of the Zodiac. That is, they redefined the time span of Aries to be from about March 20 to April 20, etc. This is what I meant by "the Zodiac sync" event.
Are these assumptions correct?
I don't know when this "Zodiac sync" happened. If it was quite a bit after ~1425, then we must conclude that the month names in the Zodiac pages were not written by the original author, but guessed by some later owner. That was my whole point.
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Months names are all one off?
Koen G > 28-05-2025, 12:14 PM
(28-05-2025, 10:45 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If it was quite a bit after ~1425, then we must conclude that the month names in the Zodiac pages were not written by the original author, but guessed by some later owner. That was my whole point.
Isn't it generally assumed that the month names were written later? Both after the early 15th century and later than the German-is marginalia of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. etc. -
RE: Months names are all one off?
R. Sale > 28-05-2025, 06:30 PM
And being written later, potentially by a different person, with an alternative perspective that differs from the standard liturgical association of Pisces with February. The history of proposed calendar reform goes back at least to Roger Bacon but took a very long time to actually occur.
How does this subsequent monthly labeling affect the investigation of the 'original' VMs? -
RE: Months names are all one off?
Koen G > 28-05-2025, 06:59 PM
I see it being of relevance in trying to reconstruct the chain of ownership. Someone wrote these month names in a French-ish dialect, later than the German-ish marginalia, and they aligned them in this way. What may this tell us about the person who had access to the MS at that moment? -
RE: Months names are all one off?
R. Sale > 28-05-2025, 09:47 PM
That there was 'some compelling reason' to choose this option over the traditional, liturgical preference. -
RE: Months names are all one off?
Bernd > 28-05-2025, 10:41 PM
The weirdest thing about the VM is that literally everything is weird. It's not just one aspect, it goes down to the smallest detail. Everything looks somewhat familiar, but ultimately nothing appears to makes sense. Neither the main text, nor the drawings, marginalia or month names.
I do understand why the hoax hypothesis is popular, though I do not agree with it (yet).
An alternative hypothesis would be that, rather than a hoax or the work of a genius, the VM could be the end product of an improbable chain of misunderstandings by different people leaving their marks over time and that neither the original author(s) nor the people adding the marginalia or month names fully knew what they were doing. Somewhat but not 100%. Enthusiasts but not experts. Anyway, I think there is now plenty of evidence we are dealing with a quite complex history of the manuscript. I do not think that there is a simple answer.