Wien Cod. 13647

[JustAnotherTheory]

The mansucript: Wien, Österr. Nationalbibl., Cod. 13647, could be interesting for the study of the VMS. It features the rare depiction of Cancer as a lobster with incorrectly placed legs on its tail:

    [url=https://www.handschriftencensus.de/hss/Wien][/url]

There are other similarities to the VMS too:

   

   

   

Links to the MS:

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[eggyk]

The mansucript: Wien, Österr. Nationalbibl., Cod. 13647, could be interesting for the study of the VMS. 

Thanks for this one! Few things I noticed: 

Leo is very good: 

   

The sagittarius with a fish tail and legs is very rare: 

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I would say that the pisces and gemini are reasonably normal, though. 

The month for april is interesting: 
   

The bar over the b may be for an e? Is it "aberiillen"? This is also a clear example of one of these austrian manuscripts with the unusual double dots in the middle, which could help us work out if this is abr ii llen or abr ü llen.

[JustAnotherTheory]

Great observation! I totally missed the "Aberillen"! What language would this be? It is certainly not German, maybe some weird Occitan dialect?

[DG97EEB]

Great observation! I totally missed the "Aberillen"! What language would this be? It is certainly not German, maybe some weird Occitan dialect?

It most certainly is German, and we see it a lot in German Manuscripts from the period... Take a look at Eggy's spreadsheet

[eggyk]

Great observation! I totally missed the "Aberillen"! What language would this be? It is certainly not German, maybe some weird Occitan dialect?

It is certainly a dialect of german. Bavarian-austrian. 

mertzen, abrillen, may, ander may, erst august, ander august, erst heribst, ander heribst, erst windter, lest windter

The sequence of first may, other may, first august, second august, first autumn, second autumn was common in german speaking areas. Heribst is a rare spelling, but was seen in a Salzburg sequence from the early 15th century as well. 

lest (or letzst) in december is a common southern german/austrian thing as well.

[Jorge_Stolfi]

The mansucript: Wien, Österr. Nationalbibl., Cod. 13647, could be interesting for the study of the VMS. 

But some of the similarities are not as remarkable as they may seem.  Some are actually dissimilarities.

Pisces as two fish connected by a line  is how the actual constellation has always been "parsed" and often depicted in illustrations.  (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. cites some myths that explain why there are two fish, but not where the idea of a cord came from.)

IIRC, others have posted other examples of Gemini being depicted as two people facing each other and holding crossed hands; and some were a man and a woman, as in the VMS.  But in that example you posted the two people are two soldiers.

That Sagittarius -- with a fish tail, or being swallowed by a fish, or coming out of a fish -- seems unusual, but that is not what we see in the VMS zodiac.  We see a similar fish-person composite on f79v, but it is not a  Sagittarius. (The word means "archer" or "bowman".  It comes from "sagitta" = "arrow", so literally it should mean arrow maker or trader or something like it; but "sagittarius" in the Roman army was a mounted archer.) 

On the other hand, Capricorn -- the next sign in the Zodiac -- for some reason was sometimes depicted as half-goat, half-fish.  Maybe some artist in the copying chain had one beer too many and conflated the two signs?

The month for april is interesting: The bar over the b may be for an e?

I think that bar belongs to the letter on the previous line, just above the "b".

All the best, --stolfi

[Bluetoes101]

I think that bar belongs to the letter on the previous line, just above the "b".

Seems that way to me too. 

Not sure if this is of use at all to anyone, much later, but just something that popped up when I searched out of interest.

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[eggyk]

Pisces as two fish connected by a line  is how the actual constellation has always been "parsed" and often depicted in illustrations.  (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. cites some myths that explain why there are two fish, but not where the idea of a cord came from.)

I thought it simply came from how the constellation looks. 

   

At some point, people started depicting the fish in parallel as well, keeping the tether and stars within that new shape. And sometimes it was just the tether. 

I think that bar belongs to the letter on the previous line, just above the "b".

All the best, --stolfi

Yes, you're right! Thankyou.

[Jorge_Stolfi]

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. cites some myths that explain why there are two fish [in Pisces], but not where the idea of a cord came from.

I thought it simply came from how the constellation looks.

Objectively, constellations don't look like anything.  A few groups of stars may strongly suggest particular interpretations, like the Southern Cross, or may at least look like they belong together, like the Pleiades and Orion's belt. But in general the division of the stars into constellations, and their interpretation as animals people etc were quite arbitrary.  Proofis that each culture divided the stars into different constellations with very different interpretations.

I don't think that someone would have seen the stars of Pisces as belonging together, much less as being two fishes connected by a rope, if there was not some legend that provided that interpretation.

At some point, people started depicting the fish in parallel as well, keeping the tether and stars within that new shape. And sometimes it was just the tether.

I suppose that the compact layout was mandated by the space available for each sign in Zodiac charts.  

All the best, --stolfi

[JustAnotherTheory]

@Stolfi surely, the lobster with incorrect placement of legs is a rarity?