- Options
- Login
- Desktop Style
Options
A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
- A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
-
RE: A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
Mark Knowles > Yesterday, 01:37 PM
On the question of the level of the author's education. What can we really say about this? Given the variety of sources and materials the manuscript draws on I have said they would have been very educated. If my literacy figure is roughly accurate that seems to be a given. -
RE: A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
LisaFaginDavis > Yesterday, 01:56 PM
(Yesterday, 01:20 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Quote:Ergo the Voynich Manuscript's parchment, which is inarguably low-quality, would have been less expensive than the finer parchment used in higher-quality manuscripts.
I would have a very beginner question.
And yes, I am not ashamed to admit that physical aspects of manuscripts aren't my forte.
Lisa, do you use "vellum" and "parchment" terms interchangeably?
Was Voynich Manuscript written on vellum or parchment?
Is vellum a kind of parchment? Or parchment a kind of vellum? Or are they separate things?
Great question! Technically, "vellum" is a kind of parchment, specifically the extremely thin, fine parchment made from the skin of newborn calves. The terms are often used interchangeably, but they really shouldn't be. The Voynich is NOT vellum. It's calfskin, but not newborn. It is too thick and rugged for that.
Aside from the parchment, the other materials used to create the manuscript - the inks , binders, and pigments, that is - were definitely NOT expensive and could easily have been made by just about anyone from earth, plants, and minerals that were easily acquired. Parchment of this low quality would not be beyond the reach of people in just about any strata of medieval society.
There is often an assumption that medieval people, if they weren't nobiity, were impoverished. This simply isn't true. Of course there were many, many people who lived in poverty, with no resources or purchasing power. But there were also people who lived in mutual-care communities, like the Beguines in Bruges, or monks and nuns, or communities of widows, who lived apart from the world and made what they needed or accepted charity. There is no reason to assume that such a community couldn't have 1) purchased the parchment, 2) traded or bargained for the parchment, 3) been given the parchment as a donation, or 4) have a resident parchmenter.
Asking "how much" anything cost 600 years ago in today's currency strikes me as not the right question, as it is truly unanswerable. If a sheet of parchment cost (I'm making this up) 20 guilders in 1450 Antwerp, or 150 florins in 1350 Florence, how does that help determine how much it cost in an unidentified location in the early 1400s? Was the parchment purchased with coin? Or traded for? Or given? Or homemade? What was a 1450-guilder worth fifty years earlier? What was a 1350-florin worth fifty years later? And how much are those worth in today's currency? It is really not knowable in a concrete way.
All we can really do is speak in relative terms. The VMS parchment is absolutely very low quality when compared to the fine vellum of, say, a thirteenth-century Paris Bible or the early fifteenth-century Très Riches Heures. That observation is completely in line with the quality of the artwork and of the inks and pigments, which are of the homemade variety without the high-cost minerals like lapis or malachite found in a high-end luxury production. In fact, I would have been stunned if the McCrone report had reported finding lapis or malachite in the blue or green, as that would have been at odds with quality of the parchment and artwork. As it stands, all of the forensic results are consistent with a manuscript produced for relatively low "cost" or made with homemade materials. -
RE: A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
Mark Knowles > Yesterday, 02:17 PM
(Yesterday, 01:56 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Asking "how much" anything cost 600 years ago in today's currency strikes me as not the right question, as it is truly unanswerable. If a sheet of parchment cost (I'm making this up) 20 guilders in 1450 Antwerp, or 150 florins in 1350 Florence, how does that help determine how much it cost in an unidentified location in the early 1400s? Was the parchment purchased with coin? Or traded for? Or given? Or homemade? What was a 1450-guilder worth fifty years earlier? What was a 1350-florin worth fifty years later? And how much are those worth in today's currency? It is really not knowable in a concrete way.
It seems that by trying to quantify this we can be more specific. It seems to me that if we can compare say the average monthly income of a medieval person in Europe to the cost of all the less-expensive vellum needed to produce the Voynich that would give one an idea of how it expensive it really was. Of course this would be a guesstimate, but still better than being completely non-specific it seems to me. Of course, wages and prices will vary by region as they do today, but that doesn't stop us making comparisons about the relative costs of objects today. Historical statistics about the past are widely used, if even we can't always be certain of their accuracy.
Someone could find or steal the highest quality vellum and inks, but that doesn't mean that wouldn't have a price on the free market. A very poor person can be given a Lamborghini, but that doesn't mean a Lamborghini is not expensive. -
RE: A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
LisaFaginDavis > Yesterday, 02:19 PM
(Yesterday, 01:37 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On the question of the level of the author's education. What can we really say about this? Given the variety of sources and materials the manuscript draws on I have said they would have been very educated. If my literacy figure is roughly accurate that seems to be a given.
As you can imagine, I disagree. All of the illustrative content falls squarely into the realm of folk knowledge, not at all limited to someone "educated" - understanding plants and herbal remedies, reading the stars, knowledge of how women's reproductive systems work, and so on. That is knowledge firmly rooted in women's traditional wisdom. In fact, I would argue that the use of such a unique set of symbols - whether encoded or lost language or nonsense or phonetic transcription - is also consistent with this idea, as there are other examples, even today, of women living in community with their own invented languages (such as the modern Nüshu).
At any rate, my real point in all of this is that the more we learn about the manuscript, the broader the possibilities become, not narrower. I truly believe that we will not be able to zero in on a point or community of origin until we can actually read it. I am hopeful that the work Colin and I are doing will be helpful in that regard, once we can digitally put the bifolia back in their original intended sequence, at least hypothetically. -
RE: A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
Rafal > Yesterday, 02:20 PM
Thank you for that answer.
I will always quote it when someone says Voynich Manuscript is written on vellum
I believe low quality of VM is an objective thing and I trust you in that matter.
And you raise an important point. We don't know the place where Voynich Manuscript was created so discussing prices and literacy may be hard.
It was certainly different for example in Italy and Russia.
And it could be different through time. If we ask "How much cost a car in the 20th century?", we immediately see the oversimplification. In the 1910s a car was a luxurious thing but in the 1990s it was no more. In the 1960s in USA everyone owned a car but in Soviet Union 5-10% of people owned a car.
Speaking of Voynich Manuscript we can make an assumption like "it was made in southern Germany in the 1420s" and work with that assumption. I think it is acceptable approach but you must be conscious that all your logic is no more sure as your initial assumption. -
RE: A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
Aga Tentakulus > Yesterday, 03:08 PM
Nach der 1415 erfolgten Ächtung des österreichischen Herzogs Friedrich IV. durch König Sigismund von Luxemburg übernahm die Stadt Zürich 1424 die Herrschaft Kyburg gegen die Bezahlung von 8750 Gulden als Reichspfand.
After the Austrian Duke Frederick IV was outlawed by King Sigismund of Luxembourg in 1415, the city of Zurich took over the Kyburg domain in 1424 in exchange for 8,750 guilders as an imperial pledge.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
That's also a question I keep asking myself. How much was the money worth?
8,750 guilders for an entire castle, and it was certainly not small.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -
RE: A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
Jorge_Stolfi > Yesterday, 03:57 PM
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by the University of Namur.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Eugenio Monesma
At first sight it may seem that both require an large amount of work. But the same work produces one sheet of vellum, and several hundred sheets of paper...
(Yesterday, 06:16 AM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.paper was not available everywhere. Germany, for example, had around 10 paper mills in 1450. The idea that paper was easily available to everyone, especially in rural areas, is an illusion
Paper, like vellum, has large price/weight ratio, and is not perishable. Unlike vellum, even a small a paper mill can produce several hundred sheets per day.
Thus neither paper nor vellum require local manufacture. Both can be imported over large distances. Wasn't the paper of Marci's letter made in Italy?
All the best, --stolfi
(Yesterday, 01:11 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Paper may have been available, but yes, in the early fifteenth century it was not yet in common use and would have been more expensive than parchment.
Do you have a source for this claim? -
RE: A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
Jorge_Stolfi > Yesterday, 04:20 PM
(Yesterday, 03:08 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That's also a question I keep asking myself. How much was the money worth?
There has been a lot of estimates of the value of various forms of money through history, by historians and economists. To get the modern USD equivalents one can use typical skilled or unskilled laborer wages, or the cost of basic food in an urban environment, or the cost of a median residence, etc. Each will give a different conversion rate, but roughly within the same order of magnitude.
That is how inflation is measured today, except that the uncertainties are bigger.
The information exists, just it may be hard to find with google...
All the best, --stolfi -
RE: A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
Aga Tentakulus > Yesterday, 04:57 PM
I understand what you mean, but it's not that simple.
Example:
around 1420, castle = 8750 guilders, around 1600, books 600 guilders.
A difference of 200 years. How heavy were the guilders around 1400 and 1600, and how pure was the alloy?
It is just as difficult to assess paper production and distribution between 1400 and 1600.
Example: Gutenberg Bible. First edition approx. 180 copies.
The first approx. 25 were still printed on parchment. I would be happy to have just one of them. -
RE: A name to attach to the origins of the manuscript
Jorge_Stolfi > Yesterday, 05:39 PM
(Yesterday, 04:57 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is just as difficult to assess paper production and distribution between 1400 and 1600.
Here is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., recently posted here. Paper, 410 pages, from ~1430, Switzerland(?)
Paper obviously was cheaper than vellum. Guess why it replaced it.
The Arabs introduced paper-making to Iberia in the X century. While the industry may have spread to Germany only in the late 1300s, paper made in France, Italy, etc. surely was traded all over Europe.
All the best, --stolfi