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Is the VM inspired by late-antique and medieval riddle books?
- Is the VM inspired by late-antique and medieval riddle books?
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Is the VM inspired by late-antique and medieval riddle books?
JustAnotherTheory > 27-11-2025, 08:32 AM
Hi,
I may have a theory about the contents of the manuscript, based on the illustrations. I haven't seen this idea before so I thought I'd post it here and get some feedback from long-time researchers of the manuscript.
In a nutshell, I propose that the manuscript, or at least large parts of it, is inspired by late-antique and medieval riddle books. Examples of such riddle books include:
- The Bern Riddles
- Aldhelm Riddles
- Riddles of Symphosius
- Enigmata Eusebii
Such books were common (and popular) in the 1400s, as they were often copied by scribes and compiled into Codexes containing one or more riddle books. Each book contained about 100 riddles, which were written in Latin hexameter, and the goal was to find the solutions that corresponded to the descriptive Latin riddles.
Now the thing with these riddle books is that they contain very vivid, often imaginary descriptions and anthropomorphisations of plants, astronomical phenomena, celestial cycles (sun and moon), zodiac animals, containers, vessels, baths and channels. A person who would actually (literally) draw these riddles would end up with fantastical botanical plants, nonsense looking tubes, weird animals and strange descriptions of celestial phenomena. I'll give a few examples below.
Starting with the botanical section, multiple riddle books show eery matches to the VM: Symphosius alone contains vivid, imaginary descriptions of roses (Riddle 45), poppy (Riddle 40), beet (Riddle 42), as does Aldhelm with Riddle 98: Elleborus (hellebore), Riddle 77: Ficulnea (fig tree). The Bern Riddle book has Riddle 13: De Uite (grapevine), which to me would match the illustration on folio f17v, Riddle 14: De Oliua (olive), Riddle 15: De Palme (palm tree), Riddle 37: De Pipere (pepper plant), Riddle 39: De Hedera (ivy), etc... The Bern book has a wealth of other plants and fantastical botanical descriptions.
Note that these riddles are often written in a visually strange manner, so as to "guide" the solver to the solution by metaphores. Here is an excerpt from Aldhelm Riddle 98: Hellebore:
"A purple flower, I grow in the fields with shaggy foliage.
I am very similar to an oyster: thus with reddened dye of scarlet
a purplish blood oozes by drops from my branches.
I do not wish to snatch away the spoils of life from him who eats me,
nor do my gentle poisons deprive him utterly of reason.
Nevertheless a certain touch of insanity torments him
as, mad with dizziness, he whirls his limbs in a circle"
As you can see, if one were to LITERALLY draw this plant, it would look very strange. All of the riddles are like this, which begs the question, were they used as inspiration for the VM.
As for the balneary folios, there are several interesting candidates: Symphosius' riddles contain many such riddles, for example Riddle 89: Balneum, Riddle 70: Clepsydra (water clock), Riddle 71: Puteus (water well), Riddle 72: Tubus ligneus (wooden pipe). Some of these contain references to tubes or tube-like objects.
Astronomical or astrological riddles are abundant in the above mentioned books. Some of them are highly reminiscent of folios in the VM: Eusebiua mentions the leap day evey fourth year (Riddle 26: De die bissextili, very reminiscent (at least to my eyes) of folio f68r3), Riddle 29: De aetate et saltu, Aldhelm has Riddle 58: Vesper Sidus (evening star), Riddle 48: Vertico Poli (Sphere of the heavens), Riddle 79: Sol et luna (sun and the moon), Riddle 8: Pleiades, ... The Bern Riddles contains astronomical references as well, Riddle 62: De Stellis (stars), ...
A few curiosities or striking coincidences also exist. An example is Aldhelm riddle 24: Dracontia. It describes the act of being produced by the head of a dragon, which we can see in folio f25v, where there is a dragon's head creating a plant. Or Aldhelm Riddle 55: Chrismal, which describes a multi-layered tube-like container for holding holy oils (which were used at the time of the creation of the VM), which eerily ressembles the curious objects in folios f102r1 and f102v1.
You can find all the riddles, in original Latin as well their English translations on this (awesome) website:
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There re also pretty good lists of the riddles on Wikipedia, I'll paste a few of them here for reference:
- The Bern Riddles: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
- The Aldhelm Riddles: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
- Aenigmata Symphosius: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
- Engimata Eusebii: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
At the time of creation of the VM (around 1400s according to carbon dating of the vellum), many Codexes existed that collected these riddles into a single book. This would have made it easy, for someone looking for inspiration for many different plants, celestial objects, baths, ... to do so from a single codex.
What do you think? Could the VM be (at least partially) inspired by contemporary riddle books? - The Bern Riddles
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RE: Is the VM inspired by late-antique and medieval riddle books?
oshfdk > 27-11-2025, 10:23 AM
Hi!
I think this is a curious idea. Are there any illustrations in the known medieval riddle manuscripts? -
RE: Is the VM inspired by late-antique and medieval riddle books?
Rafal > 27-11-2025, 11:43 AM
Hi, even if it isn't thanks for the interesting links
I would say that VM isn't monolithic. Different parts of it like herbal, astrological or balneological may have different insiprations.
If it contains some riddles then it went much better than expected because the manuscript itself is the biggest riddle
And if it has riddles similar to those from your links then we cannot read them so we don't know.
I would be curious to see some illustrations too. -
RE: Is the VM inspired by late-antique and medieval riddle books?
Bluetoes101 > 27-11-2025, 01:22 PM
Oh no, solvers are going to use "riddle" to explain word salad now aren't they
It's an interesting idea, I hadn't heard of it before and thanks for the links
What do you think? Could the VM be (at least partially) inspired by contemporary riddle books?
I think choosing to do it on vellum would be strange, who knows maybe they were just very rich.. anyway, the key part from taking it beyond an idea would be comparisons as the others said. After all, the hobbit would be very different if Bilbo and Gollum said "wait a minute, I need my vellum, ink, paints..". Not to say it didn't happen, but I would imagine they were intended to be read and people guess the answer, rather than draw as they go and make weird drawings? -
RE: Is the VM inspired by late-antique and medieval riddle books?
bi3mw > 27-11-2025, 08:12 PM
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RE: Is the VM inspired by late-antique and medieval riddle books?
JustAnotherTheory > 28-11-2025, 04:08 PM
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RE: Is the VM inspired by late-antique and medieval riddle books?
JustAnotherTheory > 28-11-2025, 05:06 PM
(27-11-2025, 08:12 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quote:The riddles are written in Latin rhythmic hexameter.
That could explain the rigid line structure, at least.
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I requested the paper. Let's see if it works.
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This is very interesting. I had no idea! -
RE: Is the VM inspired by late-antique and medieval riddle books?
JustAnotherTheory > 28-11-2025, 05:12 PM
(27-11-2025, 11:43 AM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi, even if it isn't thanks for the interesting links
I would say that VM isn't monolithic. Different parts of it like herbal, astrological or balneological may have different insiprations.
If it contains some riddles then it went much better than expected because the manuscript itself is the biggest riddle
And if it has riddles similar to those from your links then we cannot read them so we don't know.
I would be curious to see some illustrations too.
Basically the way I see it, is that since the VM often has a SINGLE theme on each page (i.e., a single illustration), this corresponds well with the medieval riddle hypothesis, as a single page could correspond to a single riddle.