VMs: RE: Qoteedy nine

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxx>]

Nick wrote:
>
> Whatever's going on here, making inferences about
> shorthand pre-Bright is a
> hazardous area, for sure. :-/

I'm not so certain it's all that dangerous a ground, for many
reasons.  Granted we don't have a lot of information, since
shorthand documents were apparently rarely kept, most probably
scrapped because the inheritors couldn't read them, and also
because the notation was meant for temporary use.  Nevertheless,
most historians of shorthand note that there are several
references throughout the centuries to the use of such systems,
even if the systems themselves have not survived.  Or were they
ever lost?  Tironian notes were not entirely lost, and even if
they were, this does not preclude an advancement and continuation
on the same theme, especially in monastic environs.

There is little evidence that Trithemius was aware of most of the
lost Tironian notes, but I remain unconvinced that conceptually
Bright's shorthand system was entirely his, especially since
several common characters carry themselves into other systems.
Almost universal understanding of a symbol infers a degree of
history.  The question of purpose enters into Voynich construction
and shorthand use in any event.  Trithemius' imaginary alphabets
are for the purpose of secrecy, and no doubt one of the advantages
of early shorthand was its secrecy, possibly a much greater
advantage than speed of writing.  That forms of shorthand were in
common use long before Bright's publication is evidenced by
Porta's 1568 dissertation on its use as a means of secrecy in
Italy, and I'm also following up on a very tantalizing lead
concerning a "shorthand cipher" used by members of the court
during Henry VIII's reign.

The "temporary" nature of shorthand is probably why we don't have
more examples of its early use, and this is in keeping with your
"wax tablets" theory, since they were apparently the primary
medium for recording temporary and erasable data.  Nevertheless, I
have already discovered numerous marginalia on early books in
unknown shorthand, bolstering my belief that it was more common
pre-Bright than is historically recorded.

There is also that driving need that humans possess to record
things verbatim that I can't see as being left unfulfilled in one
form or another.  This skill becomes especially meaningful with
the advent of the printing press, where one can record a fiery
sermon for all posterity, or the contents of an impromptu and
moving speech.  There are pre-Bright statements that even Generals
had a recorder by their side in conflict, although the nature of
their recording is left to speculation.  While they are not
definitely referred to as stenographers, even in Henry's court
there were secretaries employed to record proceedings and later
turn them into polished verbatim presentations.  I assume this was
the case for other courts throughout Europe, and the gift of
speedy writing would have been a great advantage to these
individuals in their work.  Later on we get snapshots of these
efforts as well.  In one instance, four men took shorthand notes
of a controversial sermon, and compared them to produce a verbatim
transcript suitable for print and discussion.  If this can be
considered a snapshot of the times, it would seem that the use of
short notation became increasingly important post-Luther, when
otherwise mundane religious debates were elevated to heated
discussions and political statements.  It has even been suggested
that the "foul copies" of early Shakespearean plays were
accomplished by plagiarizing the play in shorthand while it was
enacted.  The dropped passages and confounded lines are in keeping
with the problems of early shorthand notation.

Snapshots of the time period are very important for understanding
I've discovered, as they provide us with information we'd
otherwise not possess on daily life and times.  It is not widely
understood that mathematics was not part of university curriculum
during the time we expect the Voynich to have been written.
Universities considered mathematics as a tool of tradesmen and
astrologers, not part of what a noble education required, and it
wasn't until the 1570's that a case began to be built for
mathematics in higher education.  Astrology was a necessary part
of medicine, and all medical training remained in the hands of
religious orders on university campuses.  Cambridge for instance
had a Catholic grant for the poor that entitled 70 poor students
to be trained in the medical arts, and this grant was extended
even under Henry VIII.  Medicine was not considered a pursuit of
wealthy students, rather a charitable pursuit, and unlike modern
American times, few physicians gained any appreciable social
status or wealth.

Shorthand also owes its current existence to medicine and
religious education.  All early texts on shorthand are from
Physicians or Doctors of Divinity, including Bright, who was
apparently the first to publicly carry this art beyond a
university setting.  A "doctor's shorthand" existed before
Bright's publication, and I believe Bright may have incorporated a
few of these symbols in his work.

What I find most interesting is that the vast majority of Voynich
glyphs are represented in Latin shorthand and English systems of
shorthand notation.  The numerous Latin abbreviations as
catalogued in D'Imperio are holdovers from Tironian notes, and
fairly universal.  The additional symbols are Cantabridgian, or at
least this is the only current source I've discovered for their
documentation.  I'd love to find that they were more universal,
but the nature of early shorthand systems appears to be that they
were rather localized in their creation and implementation.  I
mentioned to you earlier that I was tracking a specific system
used at the Cambridge school of Divinity, but I have yet to hear
back from them on this matter.  The snippet of text I viewed has
many Voynich features, and predates Bright by about 40 years.

This area of study is a new one in some sense, and I admit I've
been unable to find sources for shorthand from Italy or France,
both of major educational influence during the late 15th and early
16th centuries.  Somewhere, there is a piece or two of information
on this subject, but I haven't stumbled across it, and quite
frankly I don't know where to look at present.

I'm remain rather steadfast on my position at this point, at least
until I or someone else uncovers edivence to expand the realm of
this symbology beyond English sources.  My first act when I reach
a conclusion is to attempt to prove myself wrong, but I admit that
this is not always an objective pursuit. :-)  This branch of study
clearly requires a great deal more research.

GC


> My current shorthand hypothesis is fairly restrained:
> that Timothy Bright's
> characterie was patentable (in the modern sense, ie, as
> the result of a
> novel and inventive step).
>
> As with all patents, it rested on prior art - which, in
> this case, I
> believe to be single-stroke wax-tablet alphabets...
> though whether Bright
> observed such alphabets in England (on such wax tablets
> as found in
> Swinegate in York) or on the continent (as he certainly
> visited Paris in
> 1572) really isn't possible to say ATM.
>
> What, then, was Bright's inventive step? It was the
> codification of
> *abstract* ideas as a series of shapes - Tironian notae
> (apart from a
> handful of sign fossils) were well and truly lost by
> that time (it would
> appear that even Trithemius didn't recognise them),
> and, anyway, they
> formed a set of codifications of *concrete* ideas,
> which is fairly
> conceptually different.
>
> In the period 1400-1588 (to which most of us would be
> fairly comfortable
> dating the VMS), I would therefore argue that any
> shorthand or tachygraphic
> system, to be effective (ie, one that stood any chance
> of keeping up with
> the spoken word), would almost certainly rest on (up
> to) four principles:
> (1) single-stroke characters - for writing fast
> (2) abbreviations of words - for writing less per word
> (3) code-book indices - quite possibly expressed as numbers
> (4) extra symbols signifying commonly used words or phrases
>
> Certainly, (2)-(4) all had their place in the
> (numerous) ciphers of the
> time, though to my eyes there appears to be little
> solid evidence of (4) in
> the VMS. But if code-book indices were used in the VMS,
> where are the numbers?
>
> Hmmm.... I continue to be tantalised by the
> absence/presence of numbers in
> the VMS: the whole gallows-as-multiples-of-10 theory
> seems extremely
> plausible, and fits in very well with the idea of an
> underlying shorthand
> alphabet... I just wish I could prove it one way or
> another... bah! :-(
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>