RE: VMs: Lines as functional units

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nick wrote:

> This same kind of indentation is superficially evident on the top 40% of
> f112r - but note that here the line-end characters feature numerous <-m>
> characters (and so follow Currier). I would suggest that this page is
> therefore more likely to be associated with the kind of flaw, rip or
> similar defect in the original vellum that Phil Neal has proposed before,
> and not poetry per se.
>
> Interestingly, if you look at f112v (ie the reverse side of
> f112r), you'll
> see that the first 10 lines are sharply left-indented, while the text's
> line-width generally expands as the text goes down the page. To my eyes,
> this strongly suggests that this is a copy of a document, where the
> copyists have tried to retain the (flaw-constrained) layout of
> the original
> - there's no obvious reason why the whole width of the vellum
> wouldn't have
> been used (unlike f81r, the text here doesn't look much like a poem).

Not having the original in front of me, I can only wager a guess, but I'm
willing to bet that since there is ample evidence of medium/poor grade
vellum in other places, the deformity on the edge of f112 was there
originally.  The first line extended to the right and the flowing shape of
the paragraphs beneath is suggestive (to me anyway) that the author wanted
to "hide" the original flaw by leaving space for a drawing of some sort that
fit the curvature of the flaw.  On f112v, we have the nice neat rectangle,
which may also be found in manuscripts where illumination is incomplete.  We
have examples in the VMS of pages where illumination was probably done
before the text, and examples of where it was probably done after the text.
This may not be the final answer for what we see on f112, but it is the
simple answer.

GC

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx]On
> Behalf Of Nick Pelling
> Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 12:35 PM
> To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: VMs: Lines as functional units
>
>
> Hi Mike,
>
> Welcome to the list! :-)
>
> At 18:10 18/07/2003 +0100, Mike Stannett wrote:
> >a) lines seem to be functional linguistic units
> >b) words tend to be short
> >c) this doesn't seem to be due to abbreviation
> >d) there are lots of repeated-word segments
> >
> >It occurs to me that all of these features can be partially explained
> >by a single hypothesis: the inclusion of poetry/verse. I'm not
> >suggesting that the whole thing is in verse, of course, but that parts
> >of it may be.
>
> Certainly, the right-hand indentation on f81r looks (to my eye) like the
> page might well be in verse. But I think you'll find that this page has
> quite a different kind of line-end statistics from the kind Currier
> described (for example, only one line on it has the terminal <-m>
> character), which you'll find to be the case nearly everywhere
> elsewhere in
> the VMS (IIRC).
>
> This same kind of indentation is superficially evident on the top 40% of
> f112r - but note that here the line-end characters feature numerous <-m>
> characters (and so follow Currier). I would suggest that this page is
> therefore more likely to be associated with the kind of flaw, rip or
> similar defect in the original vellum that Phil Neal has proposed before,
> and not poetry per se.
>
> Interestingly, if you look at f112v (ie the reverse side of
> f112r), you'll
> see that the first 10 lines are sharply left-indented, while the text's
> line-width generally expands as the text goes down the page. To my eyes,
> this strongly suggests that this is a copy of a document, where the
> copyists have tried to retain the (flaw-constrained) layout of
> the original
> - there's no obvious reason why the whole width of the vellum
> wouldn't have
> been used (unlike f81r, the text here doesn't look much like a poem).
>
> IMO, these particular pages are problematic for all theories which try to
> explain the VMS in terms of anything other than cryptography or a
> translation of an existing text into a bizarre language - it seems like a
> strange step of the imagination, even for a hoaxer... for why would a
> hoaxer want to fake a copy of a manuscript, rather than to fake an
> original? There's surely more money to be had in hoaxing an original
> manuscript than in hoaxing a copy of a manuscript?
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>
>
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