RE: Why does heraldry fail?
R. Sale > 14-11-2016, 09:46 PM
JKP, VViews & Koen,
The shape of a moving snake is an occurrence of nature, whether it is wavy or nebuly or whatever. However, the name that is given to a pattern is derived from its ideological origins - wavy from waves, obviously; nebuly from nebula, just as obviously.
In the same way, if you fold a band of cloth (lace) back and forth on itself, it will assume a natural shape and it's going to take a lot of starch to get it to do something else.
As far as nebuly lines in VMs leaf margins, is this really a natural occurrence? Where are the real plants that possess this characteristic? While I'm not involved in the investigation of VMs plants, I do know that leaf margins are categorized into a number of different patterns and I do not recall this sort of regular, bulbous meandering to be one of them. But perhaps someone has found an example.
Now to Koen's points. First of all, number is not indicative of validity; quantity is not reflective of quality. And clearly there are a number of tub patterns that are clear matches to specific, named, heraldic patters. If I say "chevrons", everyone who knows the definition is going to choose the same, singular example from the VMs tub patterns. And the same can be done for a number of other examples.
If there are other patterns which can be explained in other ways, please be more specific and provide examples.
Sam has proposed that the figure in question is obviously female. I have suggested that other, more subtle factors may apply, such as atypical depiction and the difficulty of determining a clothed person's gender exclusively by looking at the clothing covering the chest. Why is the specific area so clearly white, with red paint to enhance the image? Is the painter in collusion with the ink artist? That's not supposed to be possible. A closer examination reveals certain ambiguities and those ambiguities may well be intentional. Just like the orientation of the blue stripes in White Aries initially seems to be determined according to a radial interpretation of the illustration. But that is not the only possibility.
In a normal text, the effort is generally to state thing in as clear a manor as is possible. In a text where information has been hidden, other factors apply and other steps must be taken. Contradiction does not work because contradiction is negation. Ambiguity is an excellent option because it provides a disguised gateway that can only be opened by those who are familiar with the disguised interpretation. The validity of the disguised interpretation can then be validated by other factors in the illustration. In other words: A heraldic pattern with blue and white stripes has many interpretations. A pattern, bendy, argent et azur has several interpretations. A pair of such bendy patterns has very few historical interpretations. A pair of the bendy patterns and a red galero has a *singular* historical interpretation. Then there is the confirmation of this identification through the proper hierarchical placement of the images in the celestial spheres of the illustration, etc., etc., including the papelonny pun. If the complexity of this construction can not be accidental, it must be intentional. And being intentional implies there is significance and a potential purpose.
Heraldry succeeds by providing the intended reader with a traditional and familiar pathway, in an otherwise complex, confusing and incomprehensible document, starting with the known origins of the religious traditions of the cardinal's red galero and leading to (IMO) the specific passages of marked circular bands of text in the illustration. The task of heraldry is fulfilled and complete. The inability to make sense of the written text is a separate matter altogether, dependent on complexity of the language, lack of focused investigation and other potential difficulties.
If we were to focus on the clues provided, not the host of distractions, there might be some possibility of progress. If we continue to debate the existence of the intentional construction found in these illustrations, any progress will have to come from other areas. And if the opening provided by heraldry is the sort of unique key to further investigation that I feel that it is, I don't see where any similar opportunity is duplicated elsewhere in the VMs.
In my view, the whole attitude of modern skeptical investigation is problematic. The continuous demand for proof of this detail and that. The fact that some detail in the VMs is not *exactly* like some other example. I think that an investigator should try, at least in part, to assume the view point of the author and the intended readership. And if communication between author and reader is to be achieved, then they must share some common understanding. It therefore behooves the author to chose certain common traditions and historical events. Heraldry, in both its armorial and ecclesiastical forms, were a native part of the European culture concurrent with the VMs parchment dates and for any subsequent date of VMs creation.
Perhaps the whole issue depends on the simple matter of perspective on the interpretation of ambiguity in the illustrations. From the perspective of the parchment dates, I believe that ambiguity would be seen to contain similarity. And within that perspective, similarity is treated as identity. Identity is ideological. While from the modern perspective, ambiguity contains certain differences. Differences deny identity. Differences are visual. And the thing about differences in the VMs is that they are flawed and ambiguous themselves. The orientation of the blue-striped patterns is not just one possible option. Only the hidden, second option makes a significant, historical connection. The creator of these images is a master of heraldry able to create the papelonny pun. Sophisticated heraldic canting and objective positional confirmations are confronted by investigators who have never seen a specific, obscure heraldic fur and what should we expect? Nothing. It actually is obscure and often omitted from references. That does not impact the validity of the identification.