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A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
- A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
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A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
Daniel1992 > 17-07-2026, 03:02 PM
Long-time lurker, first post - got here through a few YouTube deep-dives (Voynich Talk) like probably half the new accounts on this forum. I want to be upfront: I haven't translated anything and I'm not claiming to have solved the manuscript. What I've got is a hypothesis about why and how it was made, and a guess about where a translation key could still be sitting undiscovered. Would genuinely like people to poke holes in this.
The medical knowledge gap that started it
Early 15th century European medicine was still mostly bloodletting, prayer, and humoral theory. Meanwhile the Islamic Golden Age and Persia had already produced serious empirical medicine - Avicenna's Canon of Medicine is the obvious example, with pharmacology and surgical knowledge way ahead of anything being taught in European universities at the time. That knowledge wasn't sealed off from Europe - it was leaking in steadily through Venetian trade networks and the Crusader contact zone, and Venice's trade routes ran straight up through the Alpine passes into Northern Italy and Southern Germany. Which, notably, is the same general region most researchers place the Voynich's origin.
The Church didn't just discourage foreign or "pagan" science, it had criminalized it outright - Pope John XXII's 1326 bull Super illius specula explicitly equated unauthorized astrology and alchemy with demonic heresy. So if you're a physician in 1410s Alpine Europe with Arabic-derived medical texts, you're not looking at a fine, you're looking at a stake.
And the Church was actively enforcing this in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. The Council of Constance ran 1414 to 1418 - the largest assembly of clergy, physicians and scholars in Europe at that point - right on the edge of the Alps. And it wasn't a passive gathering: on July 6, 1415, Jan Hus was burned at the stake there for heresy, in front of the assembled Church establishment. If you're a physician holding "infidel" medical texts, that's about as unambiguous a warning as you're going to get.
This wasn't only about survival
My theory is this was also about money. Medicinal bathing - balneotherapy as i understand it - was seriously lucrative in this period. Physicians and guilds who had superior, more effective treatments (baths, herbal preparations, dosing regimens derived from more advanced Eastern pharmacology) had a real competitive edge over rival practitioners and rival towns. So I think what we're looking at is a physicians' guild or syndicate with two overlapping reasons to hide this material: they'd be executed if the Church found "infidel" science in their possession, and separately, they didn't want competing physicians or guilds stealing their treatments and undercutting their income. Trade-secret protection plus heresy protection, at the same time, from the same document. That dual motive is, I think, a better explanation for why they didn't just bury the source texts under a floorboard - hiding isn't enough when you also want to keep using the knowledge yourself without a rival guild copying it.
By this point cryptography was already a real profession - papal secretaries and royal courts had codebreakers doing frequency analysis on substitution ciphers. If you just Caesar-cipher a Latin translation of an Arabic text, and it gets cracked, you're dead, and so is your guild's monopoly on the treatment. So instead of encrypting a known language, I think they built something closer to an invented notation system (William F. Friedman) - an a priori language organized around categories rather than spoken vocabulary. This actually matches the modern statistical work: the text follows Zipf's law and has real word-structure and entropy patterns consistent with meaningful information - but it doesn't match the underlying structure of any known spoken language. That's exactly what you'd expect from a constructed notation system rather than an enciphered natural language - no natural-language "key" to find because there wasn't a natural language sitting underneath it in the first place.
Why the words are so short
Something that convinced me is the shape of the words themselves. 240 pages of decent vellum works out to something like 14 to 15 calves, which isn't nothing - vellum was a real expense, and a finished multi-volume set of that size would also be a pain to physically hide or move around if you ever needed to. If you're trying to cram several treatises worth of material (herbal/medical stuff plus a whole separate astronomical section) into one book you can actually carry and conceal, you're going to need some form of serious shorthand. That's not a new idea for the period either - Tironian notes had been around for centuries at that point, and the whole concept behind them is a single stroke standing in for an entire word, prefix, or common phrase. Scribes copying legal or ecclesiastical documents used systems like this all the time to save time and material.
What's interesting is that Voynichese looks like it's doing something similar. The words are strange in a very specific way, almost none of them run longer than 8 or 10 characters, there's basically no doubling of letters, and you don't get the kind of irregular, messy variation you'd expect from a word in an actual spoken language. It behaves more like a constrained set of building blocks getting recombined over and over. To me that's more consistent with each "word" acting as something like a compressed tag or instruction rather than a word in the normal sense - closer to how a note-taking shorthand collapses "the patient should boil the root for three hours" down into a handful of marks, rather than how someone would actually write out a sentence.
Why the text changes character between sections (Currier A/B)
The herbal section deals with descriptive/botanical data, while the pharmaceutical section handles preparation and dosage. The astronomical section deals with positional/cyclical data - degrees, houses, timing. If you're building a notation system for compression, you can't use the same symbol logic for "root" and "planetary degree" - the underlying data types are just too different. So I think the Currier A/B split isn't two languages, it's the same compression system straining differently against two different kinds of source material, plausibly worked on in parallel by different specialists within the guild (the manuscript does show five distinct scribal hands, and there are no corrections or erasures anywhere, which reads more like fluent transcription of already-organized material than someone inventing content on the fly).
Timeline as I see it
- 1404–1438: vellum C14 range
- 1414–1418: Council of Constance - possibly the point where physicians/scholars from different areas converged and pooled source material under cover of a legitimate gathering
- July 6, 1415: Hus's execution: the likely trigger that turned "let's hide this eventually" into "we need this encoded now"
- 1415–1420ish: the actual writing
- Fashion and architecture in the illustrations (hairstyles, hats, tunics, and specifically the swallowtail/Ghibelline merlons on the castles - a known regional signature of North Italian/Alpine construction) all point to pre-1430, consistent with the C14 window and consistent with the scribes drawing what was physically around them at the time.
The actual point of this post, where I think the missing piece is
None of the above gets anyone a translation, and I think people sometimes oversell "cracking the logic" as equivalent to cracking the text. What I think is actually missing is a physical key (Rosetta Stone) some kind of reference document the guild would have needed internally to keep their own notation consistent across scribes over multiple years, especially given the two-domain (medical/astronomical) split. A guild encoding valuable trade secrets wouldn't operate purely from memory; there'd almost certainly have been an internal reference list, even an informal one.
Given the Constance connection, my guess is that if anything like that survived, it's more likely sitting uncatalogued in a regional Church, guild, or municipal archive near Constance/Lake Constance than in a well-known collection - the kind of document that wouldn't have been recognized as significant unless someone was specifically looking for Voynich-adjacent notation. The other possibility I keep turning over: the Habsburgs apparently acquired a lot of documents from this region, maybe there is some related material - including a key, or reference notes, or even correspondence about it - could been archived and could still be sitting somewhere in the Viennese court archives uncatalogued as because nobody was looking for it.
That's really the actionable part of this theory, if there is one: has anyone here done archive work specifically in the Constance regional archives, or in the Viennese Habsburg court records, looking for guild/physicians' notation systems or references to a "hidden" or "coded" medical text from this period? That seems like the piece that would actually move this from plausible narrative to testable claim, rather than more statistical work on the manuscript itself.
Happy to be told I'm missing something obvious, genuinely posting this to get it stress-tested, not to declare victory. - 1404–1438: vellum C14 range
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RE: A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
ololololo > 17-07-2026, 08:31 PM
(17-07-2026, 03:02 PM)Daniel1992 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The herbal/medical section deals with physical, descriptive data - plant parts, preparation, dosage
Parts of the plants are not explicitly described there. There is a pharmacy section for this.(17-07-2026, 03:02 PM)Daniel1992 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What's interesting is that Voynichese looks like it's doing something similar.
There was You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. It belongs to the category of false hypotheses that are complex and absurd in themselves, but are very well applicable to VMS.
Abbreviations work a little differently... They can't turn the language into Voynichese.
(17-07-2026, 03:02 PM)Daniel1992 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Given the Constance connection, my guess is that if anything like that survived, it's more likely sitting uncatalogued in a regional Church, guild, or municipal archive near Constance/Lake Constance than in a well-known collection - the kind of document that wouldn't have been recognized as significant unless someone was specifically looking for Voynich-adjacent notation.
I don't really understand how Constance, Jan Hus, and VMS are related. Perhaps the VMS theme itself is dangerous or very "unconventional" for that time. The author has many more reasons to encrypt this text.
I think it's most likely that the VMS was produced in Central/Western Europe, based on its style. However, it could be from anywhere, but it's unlikely that a Turk or an Aztec would copy illustrations from European books for their strange manuscript.
In general, there is nothing new here... -
RE: A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
Daniel1992 > 17-07-2026, 11:16 PM
Plants part, my bad. Already adjusted that one. I had no idea it gets distinguished like that (herbal vs pharmaceutical section). Thanks for pointing it out.
On the abbreviation thing, just to be clear what I mean: I'm not saying Voynichese words are literally medieval abbreviations in the Tironian sense. What I'm getting at is closer to Friedman's take after his ~40 years on this, an invented notation system, not a natural language with abbreviations bolted on, and not a straightforward cipher either. I bring this up because I'm hoping we can eventually find a document that actually allows translating it. If this is a constructed system, somewhere there should be a key or reference that was used to keep it consistent, and that's really the part I'm interested in chasing down.
On Constance and Hus, I connected it to the Constance event since it was a major event for physicians in the region, and I thought that was an interesting reason to motivate a doctors guild to invest a large amount of money into something like this. I get there's no documented link between Hus's case specifically and anyone hiding medical material, so I'm not claiming it as proof, just a plausible motivating pressure given the timing and who was in the room. My understanding is that the style of the illustrations, clothing, hats, castle architecture and handwriting/paleography link the VMS to the Northern Italy area.
Where I'd still push back a little: the "nothing new here" comment feels aimed at the individual facts (C14 range, Currier A/B, etc.), which I agree aren't new. What I was trying to put out there wasn't any single data point but how they fit together, plus a concrete next step: archival material near Constance or in the Habsburg court records tied to guild notation systems. If that's already been looked into and ruled out, I'd genuinely want to know, since that's the part of this I actually care about being right or wrong. -
RE: A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
oshfdk > 17-07-2026, 11:56 PM
How can you "rule out" archival documents of Lake Constance region? I know that Lake Constance and the Council have been mentioned many times on this forum, so in this sense there is indeed nothing new here, I agree with ololololo.
Also, could you give a example of what you mean by "guild notation system"? I only know about generic shorthand notation, I didn't know there were specific guild notation systems. -
RE: A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
ReneZ > 17-07-2026, 11:56 PM
The following point is not meant as a criticism, but more as a general remark for all people thinking along these lines.
We're not really lacking any possible explanations why the MS was created, why it was 'encoded', in which historical context. There are plenty and the above is one example. Doing this is fun, and at the same time one gets to look up and read more about some of the fascinating parts of history.
Now while we have several different explanations, we do not (yet) know which one, if any, is the correct one, and this will still be worthwhile finding out.
What we lack, very much, is good evidence that the text is indeed encoded information, that could have been of some value in the 15th century. I like to think that it is, but I am not convinced. -
RE: A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
ololololo > 18-07-2026, 01:14 PM
(17-07-2026, 11:16 PM)Daniel1992 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What I'm getting at is closer to Friedman's take after his ~40 years on this, an invented notation system, not a natural language with abbreviations bolted on, and not a straightforward cipher either.
Would a medieval doctor need such a system? Why would he invent a rather complicated system of abbreviations from scratch (if you don't think so, try it yourself), when he can encrypt or write in a lesser-known language that he knows? There are also no historical candidates for such a system of abbreviations.
Voynichese may be an artificial language (as Friedman said), but it is not a "conlang" in the usual sense. At the very least, it was impossible to communicate on it.
(17-07-2026, 11:16 PM)Daniel1992 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On Constance and Hus, I connected it to the Constance event since it was a major event for physicians in the region, and I thought that was an interesting reason to motivate a doctors guild to invest a large amount of money into something like this.
It can't be said that a lot of money was invested in VMS. As for the materials, they were all quite cheap and common, the parchment was of poor quality, and, if I may say so, so was the scribe also
(17-07-2026, 11:16 PM)Daniel1992 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If that's already been looked into and ruled out, I'd genuinely want to know, since that's the part of this I actually care about being right or wrong.
I do not know about this myself. I've never spent any time in the Constance Archives in my life
, but it might be worth it... It would be nice to find something similar, not necessarily identical.
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RE: A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
Rafal > 18-07-2026, 02:23 PM
Quote:Voynichese may be an artificial language (as Friedman said), but it is not a "conlang" in the usual sense. At the very least, it was impossible to communicate on it.
I am curious about your definition of "constructed language" (conlang) and how it differs from "artificial language".
By the way, most conlangs were never spoken by a group of people and never reached the form allowing free, easy discussion.
Things like Esperanto are exception. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was most probably never spoken, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.was most probably never spoken, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.was most probably never spoken and so on. -
RE: A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
ololololo > 18-07-2026, 02:40 PM
(18-07-2026, 02:23 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Yes, I was referring to the type of artificial languages you mentioned. The fact is that they were not intended for communication in general, but rather for writing specific texts.Quote:Voynichese may be an artificial language (as Friedman said), but it is not a "conlang" in the usual sense. At the very least, it was impossible to communicate on it.
I am curious about your definition of "constructed language" (conlang) and how it differs from "artificial language".
By the way, most conlangs were never spoken by a group of people and never reached the form allowing free, easy discussion.
Things like Esperanto are exception. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was most probably never spoken, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.was most probably never spoken, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.was most probably never spoken and so on.
But I don't know which name would be better - an artificial language or a philosophical language? -
RE: A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
Rafal > 18-07-2026, 05:11 PM
Quote:Yes, I was referring to the type of artificial languages you mentioned. The fact is that they were not intended for communication in general, but rather for writing specific texts.
But I don't know which name would be better - an artificial language or a philosophical language?
I have some (maybe not so big) experience with conlangs due to my involvment with Rohonc Codex.
I would say constructed language is the broadest concept. Philosophical languages are a subset of constructed languages.
Philosophical languages usually assume that words and names reflect some real life hierarchy of objects.
So for example all colours will have similar names differing only with a single letter. Or names of animals will indicate if it is a mammal, bird or fish.
From Wikipedia:
A philosophical language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles, sometimes following a classification (...)
In most philosophical languages, words are constructed from a limited set of morphemes that are treated as "elemental" or "fundamental".
Word examples for Ro language ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. )
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–earth
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–ocean
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–sea
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You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–prairie
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So "philosophical language" doesn't mean "not supposed to be spoken" but a bit different thing. -
RE: A hypothesis on why/how the VMS was made
ololololo > 18-07-2026, 05:57 PM
(18-07-2026, 05:11 PM)Rafal Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Voynichese fits this definition suspiciously...Quote:Yes, I was referring to the type of artificial languages you mentioned. The fact is that they were not intended for communication in general, but rather for writing specific texts.
But I don't know which name would be better - an artificial language or a philosophical language?
I have some (maybe not so big) experience with conlangs due to my involvment with Rohonc Codex.
I would say constructed language is the broadest concept. Philosophical languages are a subset of constructed languages.
Philosophical languages usually assume that words and names reflect some real life hierarchy of objects.
So for example all colours will have similar names differing only with a single letter. Or names of animals will indicate if it is a mammal, bird or fish.
From Wikipedia:
A philosophical language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles, sometimes following a classification (...)
In most philosophical languages, words are constructed from a limited set of morphemes that are treated as "elemental" or "fundamental".
Word examples for Ro language ( You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. )
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–earth
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–ocean
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–sea
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–gulf
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–land
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–continent
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–island
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–peninsula
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–isthmus
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–plain
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–prairie
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–swamp
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–hill
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–ridge
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–valley
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–canyon
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.–channel
So "philosophical language" doesn't mean "not supposed to be spoken" but a bit different thing.