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Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube
- Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube
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Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube
Koen G > 04-08-2025, 10:59 PM
Hi all,
I just uploaded You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. to YouTube! I added timestamps in the comments so you can easily find what you're looking for. For now, the video is unlisted. This means that everyone with the link can view it, but it's not public. I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow, so I will fix everything properly and publish it after I'm back. But for now, you can watch it and share the link anywhere you like.
I uploaded You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. marginalia script separately, since I made this in the style of my channel (but for the specific purpose of premiering it on VMD!)
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RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube
LisaFaginDavis > 05-08-2025, 01:26 AM
That's great work, Koen! -
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube
Antonio García Jiménez > 05-08-2025, 08:42 AM
Great work as always Koen. I love Cary's sculptures -
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube
Koen G > 05-08-2025, 09:55 PM
Someone asked permission to edit the public copy, so I've decided to open it up to anyone who'd like to edit it. If you want an unaltered version of what Marco and I made, it's probably best to download the file or copy it on your own Drive.
If anyone else would like to add to the public file, please request editing permission in the file and I'll grant it. -
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube
Koen G > 10-08-2025, 08:17 PM
I see Garlonga added a few entries - nice! What is your experience so far? -
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube
Garlonga > 10-08-2025, 09:50 PM
I enjoy looking at random manuscripts so it's nice to have some purpose and search constraints like dates or area, plus I am discovering a lot of sites I didn't know, which is always cool.
I only added a couple entries so far and the process is straightforward and quick, if you don't get distracted by the manuscripts. I also think mapping all these things is a good idea and am glad to be allowed to contribute, so I plan to keep at it whenever I have some time
So far the Ch is a bit of a pain to find in Latin, so I will probably focus on looking for certificates in German or French, where you get all your letters in one or a couple pages without much variation and in a hand more similar to marginalia than in a carefully written Ms.
I do have a couple questions though:
What are the options for the type column? Manuscript, Certificate, O?
What are the date limits for the date code brackets?
Should multiple entries for the same manuscript be added when it's a compilation of texts or written by different hands?
Cheers -
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube
Koen G > 10-08-2025, 10:30 PM
Awesome! I found adding samples somewhat addictive at first, it's satisfying to learn this way. At least for the first 100 entries or so
The types are: Charter, Manuscript, Other. I see for example that Marco marked a letter as O for Other. We never really used this column though, but it's easy to fill in.
We introduced the date codes because you can't sort a column that contains various date ranges (1444; 1450-1460; second third of the 15th century...). So having these dates codes allows for easy sorting and counting by date range. They go from 0 to 5: one code for anything earlier than the 15th century, one for each quarter of the 15th century, one for anything later than the 15th century.
- 0: ....-1400
- 1: 1400-1424
- 2: 1425-1449
- 3: 1450-1474
- 4: 1475-1499
- 5: 1500-....
I generally avoided entries dated to "15th century" since we want some more detail there, at least half a century or a quarter. Of course, if a very good match is dated "15th century", it should be added. If a date range is provided like 1420-1460, just take the average and see where that date falls. In this case, it should be code 2 for 1440.
When you come across a MS with multiple scribes, just add a note of the page somewhere. (I believe I sometimes did this in the shelfmark field?) Either way in manuscripts it might be useful to add the page where you started looking. Generally, I don't stray too many pages from the one where I started looking.
It is not necessary to add all scribes from a MS, unless you think it's interesting. I don't recall how we handled this exactly, since towards the end of the project I was mostly focused on charters. Adding the page number should be sufficient. - 0: ....-1400
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RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube
N._N. > 11-08-2025, 07:43 AM
Now that I finally managed to take a good look at your talk and the document, let me say: This looks very interesting (and a ton of work), particularly for dating the addition of the marginalia and therefore probably the main manuscript. The geographical distribution seems relevant to me as well, however, it is probably harder to draw any real conclusions there.
My apologies if I missed it, but have you considered the difference between 'casual' and 'formal' script/documents, both on a individual and general level? A professional scribe might write differently on an official document he reveives pay for compared to a personal note. Similar with a scholar who copies a text for personal use in a hurry or writes a letter to an important benefactor, for example. And a scholar might write differently than a scribe of course. On an overarching level, probably more at least semi-formal manuscripts have survived (and digitized!), which may skew results.
This could very well be relevant here because many of the properties you identified for 116v seem indicative of relatively hurried, informal writing - not connecting parts of letters, variances within just a few lines, no full sentences as far as we can identify... Quite a few of your top matches are also receipts of minor importance that might not warrant some kind of a more formal (proto-)'Kanzleischrift'.
This distinction might also be relevant in relation to your sample. For example, many of your Hessian top matches are from archives and typical archival sources, while Munich entries are primarily from the Bavarian State Library and what we would consider books, with one exception (the State Archives under München). Patterns of script use for different purposes, manuscript preservation and digitization may be misleading here if, say, Hesse financed a digitization initiative for their archives while Bavaria focused on libraries in that regard. -
RE: Voynich Manuscript Day 2025 Recording on YouTube
Koen G > 11-08-2025, 11:53 AM
It is without any doubt a more informal script. So Parisian books of hours are obviously not worth checking out. But within many document types, there is a continuum of formal to informal, measured to quick. You don't always know what you're going to get.
I am not sure if we can say whether quick charter handwriting is any different at all from quick manuscript handwriting. Or to put it differently, if a scribe does not use any formal script, will their handwriting change much depending on the type of document? Perhaps legal documents were supposed to be especially legible, but then we'd expect overall worse results in those.
I have focused a lot on charters because it was a convenient way to get a lot of data. More manuscript entries would certainly be welcome, though I think charters are just as valuable.