VMs: RE: RE: RE: RE: Yet another page

["GC" <glenclaston@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

John,

I realized after I made my posts that you and I were most probably on the
same wavelength, so I'll give comment on the following statement, inclusive
of others:

> 	The possibility that order wasn't important to the author
> has to insinuate
> that
> the content on each folio or at least each sheet of vellum is
> independent of
> its surroundings
> because the neighbouring folios were not pre-determined.

I think we agree that the B bifolios are "out of order".  I doubted this
earlier because of some things I was seeing, until I realized that the
entire A series is somewhat "out of order".  This is my impression from
"script progression" that I'm desperately seeking to turn into identifiable
numbers at present.  We both tend to think that the author was the one who
set these into quires, and after this you are the one with more info than I
have to place some later quires back into perspective.  I see numbers and
"progressions" that generally place q1 and q3 together, while I haven't done
enough work as yet to place q2.  The problem is, within each quire there is
information that tends to suggest that not all bifolios are in proper place.
That the author may have eventually reshuffled the bifolios in an attempt to
"categorize" may be the case.

Our main barrier in coalescing seems to be that I have suggested that
"order" is irrelevant in the Herbal section.  I base this on observation of
"working herbal" manuscripts, something that may or may not apply to the
VMS, though I think it quite relevant.  A "working herbal" is something
personal, and quite different from a published work.  Call it a "physician's
notebook" if that makes it better to understand.  Let's go back in time a
moment.....(wierd music)...

You're a wanna-be physician, and you've started college at the age of about
15.  You'll degree at 18 or 19 and be on your own if you're wealthy, but if
you're not, you'll pay for your education through service in a Catholic
"free clinic", attached to a college, monastery or abbey.  Chances are
you've also interned where you've studied, in the same facility.  If you're
attached to a college, you can also go on to earn your MB or MD through the
college, at the expense of the Catholic church, although servitude is much
longer than if you can simply "pay the fee" as was the case with wealthy
patrons.  (Wealth rarely gained medicinal degrees, as physicians and
surgeons were considered "lower social life forms".)  I could have left out
all the above and still made my point, obviously, but I think it good
sometimes to remind others what sort of person was most likely behind the
VMS.

The "working herbals" that I've seen and read info on are nothing more than
a physician's notebook.  No order involved, rather what comes up in life
experience.  That's why initially they have no order.  Only after experience
sets in does the author begin to make classifications and try to move things
around to match these classifications.  It's a thing that happens over time
in herbals, time and again.  They're started very early in life, as the
colleges stress the importance of such books to the user.  This is a hot
month and many cholera cases - some herbs have an effect.  Make note of
them, etc.  Some grouping maybe, but life does not offer neat and tidy
packages.

But forget all this speculation for a moment and consider, in the herbal
section, that each page may only speak about the perceived properties of a
single plant, and in this case, as is the case with all working herbals
observed, (including the Drake Manuscript, an observational rather than
working piece), and the only "index" or "order" needed was the drawing.
Later attempts at categorization or quirization were superficial at best.

My question is whether or not the quires after the herbal section indicate a
planned order, only occasionally disrupted, or if they exhibit the same
problems as the herbal section statistically.  My sense is that they are
well thought out, and that John Grove has done a very good job in pointing
out the problem areas when they appear.

So when considering an herbal apart from the rest of the manuscript,
independent order is more common as an example of working herbals than
well-planned order.  When considering later quires, such as astronomical or
astrological, these require a degree of planning, and I think all of these
things are reflected, if we choose to consider it as a natural production
emenating from a single mind.

So if I err, where do I err?  Boy, I've opened myself up for a big one here,
eh?

GC














> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx]On
> Behalf Of John Grove
> Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 6:50 PM
> To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: VMs: RE: RE: RE: Yet another page
>
>
> GC>> It also doesn't seem logical to write both sides of a folio
> in a bound
> book in B,
> the next six in A, and then the last two in B again.  It's much easier to
> assume that the folio
> leaf was laying flat, and the pages were filled in on both sides before
> being bound in quires.
>
> 	Good point. It makes complete sense that the pages had to
> have been written
> out as separate
> pieces of work that were later bound together. Now, the question is still
> out there - did the
> author foresee the order - or was, as you've stated' order not
> important so
> the originator
> didn't plan out a page one first, then page two etc... So, by your
> definition each folio contains
> a complete context separate from the other 'three' or more
> folio's attached
> to the same sheet of
> vellum - or that each of those four folios are related and in
> fact should be
> read as a parcel.
>
> 1r/1v/8r/8v make up one set of facts that are closely related to
> each other.
> 2r/2v/7r/7v make up another set and so on...
>
> If 1r was the actual last page completed, was it completed before folio 2
> was started?
>
> 	This is an interesting look at the pages in my view. If the
> author is
> responsible for
> the quire marking (which is still a big if - even though I lean that way
> myself), then the
> binding may have had something to do with categorization of
> similar context.
> I'm still not
> convinced though that B-tokened folios belong wrapped around a-tokened
> folios in the same
> quire -- I'm still game to believe that the B-tokened folios should have
> been bound together
> into a few B-quires, while the majority of herbals and pharma pages were
> intended to be in
> A-quires.
>
> 	The foliation doesn't make any sense to me - they were
> obviously written
> after the book
> was bound in a typical top-right corner of every 'recto' page.
> The ones that
> don't line up are
> perfectly in step with a fold-out that's been folded in and leaving what
> would have been a verso
> with a folio number on it. So, it is difficult to completely believe that
> the B-tokened folios
> with numbers like f26/f32 definitely fit in the 4th quire when
> the 4th quire
> begins and ends
> (and is all A except for f26r/v and its paired f32r/v). Add to
> the fact that
> the next quire
> begins and ends with a B-token page - leads to a possibility (far
> from fact,
> I know) that the
> 5th quire should have all been B-tokened.
>
> 	The missing folio numbers also allude to the fact that
> quite a number of
> folios are missing
> if we assume that they numbered all the pages in the bound book when they
> had it whole. This
> 'probably' means that f74 was just like f72 with a folio number 74 on the
> f74v2 folio and a
> quire mark on the f74v1 folio.
>
> >>What I'm seeing points to something possibly considered but rarely
> discussed - that the folio leaves sat as leaves somewhere for a great deal
> of time (herbal section only, mind you), before the decision was made to
> bind them into quires.
>
> 	Actually, I think it has been discussed in a rather round
> about way -- the
> dropped
> sheets theory. In order for the order to be messed up, the sheets
> had to be
> separate.
> The fact that you are most certainly right (a limb that I'm
> willing to climb
> out
> with you on) that the pages were written before bound may not have been
> stated outright
> before, but the question as to whether the author had a plan to order the
> pages as he
> wrote them or left that order didn't matter has not.
>
> 	The possibility that order wasn't important to the author
> has to insinuate
> that
> the content on each folio or at least each sheet of vellum is
> independent of
> its surroundings
> because the neighbouring folios were not pre-determined.
>
> 	John.
>
>
>
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