Finding parallels for Month Names handwriting (Work in Progress)

[Koen G]

At VMD 2025, I discussed the results of the research Marco and I did to learn more about the origin of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. script (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Our conclusions were that the earlier you go in the 15th century, the more likely you are to find people writing like this. The best results were found in central Germany, around Fulda and Mainz, with an "outlier" in Zurich.

We are now hoping to do something similar for the script of the month names. Over the last week, we've been setting up parameters and testing them, in order to come to a workable system that feels like it's selecting for relevant features. 

Here is the spreadsheet: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

We have about 20 entries so far, and the best results sit around 0.60, which is relatively low. Moreover, these are still all over the place, from 1404 to 1494, France to Heidelberg. The challenge appears to be finding the right type of script; the handwriting of the month names is very informal and cursive (all letters connected), while manuscripts tend to be more formal and less connected. So far, we have some success finding cursive hands in charters instead of codices, but there may be better types of sources we haven't thought about yet. 

Seeing that this is more challenging than f116v, we can use all the input we can get. The advantage is that the best matches are yet to be found: if the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. spreadsheet is an indication, the entire top 10 should still be up for grabs. So if you have some time to look through samples, there's a good chance you will make an immediate contribution to our understanding of the manuscript. As with f116v, finders of top samples will of course be credited and mentioned in any later discussions of the results. We need all the help we can get, as different people with different heuristics and skills are able to explore a wider range of sources.

Just post a link here and I or Marco will add them to the sheet. If you would like to work on the sheet directly, just ask and I will give you editing permission. (Ask through the sheet, or PM me the email address).

I tried to set up the sheet in an intuitive way, but please let me know if you have any questions or remarks. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Koen G]

So far, the strategy I've been using is to look for this peculiar style of "e", and then hope that the rest matches as well. But it's not easy to find in less formal scripts (although it certainly exists).

[Rafal]

If I may ask, do we have an agreement what language are the month names written in? Some dialect of French?

[davidma]

If I may ask, do we have an agreement what language are the month names written in? Some dialect of French?

It does look a lot like some sort of north-eastern french dialect, however I have been doing some digging on the Swiss manuscript website and I am increasingly convinced that the month names are written by someone who lived somewhere at the crossroads between Switzerland and France (Basel? Strasburg?). 

There's a few elements that make me say so but in general: May appears in Swiss manuscripts as well (one time with a tittle too!), and so do Nouembre, Decembre and Augst, as well as Jong and Aperil (although the VM spells it Aberil). The letter shapes, specifically the G and Y, are very very common in Swiss manuscripts and rately written like that by French scribes. 

The only issue with a Swiss influence on the months scribe is that Octembre is yet to be found in any Swiss manuscript.

[Koen G]

If I may ask, do we have an agreement what language are the month names written in? Some dialect of French?

Likely, though it's not clear cut. Octembre points to the north and northeast of France. Some people still think we have to look to the south of France because of Aberil. Apart from that, I'd look at French/Germanic border regions. 

Our hope is of course that this project will help us narrow it down, or maybe eliminate some options.

[N._N.]

Great initiative, looking forward to more conclusive results such as in your earlier project. 

In my opinion, not trying to pre-determine region or language is the better approach here anyway, as it reduces the risk of influencing the outcome by favouring particular regions. Any area with a Romance language might make sense to at least take a cursory look at, although there are probably limits to how far southwest or southeast one would reasonably go without anything in particular pointing there.

You are probably aware of it, but for everyone who might be interested: Gallica offers significant numbers of French digitized manuscripts and the catalogue allows to limit the search to a timeframe, manuscripts and key words. For example, Decembre has >100 hits, Octembre yields exactly one 15th century result that probably has been linked here somewhere already: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
Alternatively, searching key words by region, type of document or via the catalogues here You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. might be an approach without emphasising the month names too much.

[Jorge_Stolfi]

I tried to set up the sheet in an intuitive way, but please let me know if you have any questions or remarks. Any help is greatly appreciated!

I mentioned before my theory for why the language of the month names has been so hard to identify.  (It is distinct from my theory for why the language and translation of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. have failed us; although the two are similar in a very general sense.)

For that reason, I think it would be prudent to consider the letter style and the language as two separate and independent puzzles.  

That said, here is a sample of the month name April spelled as "abril" (with b) from the report of the "discovery" of Brazil on 22 April 1500, in Portuguese:
   
The first two words on the middle line are "dias dabril" = "days of April", from the sentence "And so we proceeded on our way through this sea all along until tuesday of the eights or easter which were the xxj days of april that we ran into some signs of land ..."

The You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and its You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (into modern Portuguese) are available online.

All the best, --jorge

[Koen G]

I will check the handwriting tomorrow. But yes, to be perfectly clear, this is only about the letterforms independent of month names.

[R. Sale]

And after "dabril" is another word. It looks like "que" to me. And if that is correct, then is the letter "e" constructed from two strokes? It seems to me that this is a standard form of construction and in carefully written examples, the two part are often connected to each other. The VMs differs in that the two parts are clearly separated, and I see that as being an idiosyncrasy of the writer.

Writing should be tied to people, not to places. People are able to move around. Isabella of Portugal married Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1430 and would have brough Portuguese influences to Dijon and then to Brussels.

Since many of the current listings have a similar "theme", I searched the e-codices of the 15th Century for 'Benedictine'. There are only 24, and discarding the nicely written examples cuts out about half of those.

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[Jorge_Stolfi]

And after "dabril" is another word. It looks like "que" to me.

Yes. From the transcription: "Easy segujmos nosso caminho per este mar delomgo ataa terça feira doitauas de pascoa que foram xxj dias dabril que topamos alguu[n]s synaaes de tera"

And if that is correct, then is the letter "e" constructed from two strokes?

That digital archive site seems to be sick, so here is a copy of the first page of that letter:

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Here are the bottom 7 lines with all the occurrences of "e" highlighted:
   
(A) a double "e", in "seemdo".
(B) a superscript "e".
(C with junk to prevent the MyBB editor from turning it into ©) a capital "E".

All the best, --jorge