RE: VMs: Image Source, Accuracy of Transcriptions

[Rene Zandbergen <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> At 18:35 28/08/2003 -0400, Larry Roux wrote:

> > I stand by what I said.  Unless I totally
> > misunderstand what you are 
> > saying, but I see 'f' and 'p' all over the place,

 [...]

> f114r I've described, and f36r clearly has two
> separate paragraphs, with 
> those single-leg gallows only on the top line of
> each paragraph - so Rene 
> is correct for those cases.
> 
> However, you are right that f48r does indeed have a
> single one (near the 
> end of the 3rd line). f30r also has one in mid-para
> (para 1, line 4): f30v 
> has two in mid-para (line 8): f33r has two (lines 4
> and 5), and so on - so  you are correct here.
> 
> While it seems to me that the majority of these
> single-leg gallows do occur 
> in the first line of paragraphs, it's clear that
> they do also occur  elsewhere [...]

This odd feature of these two letters was first
noted by Tiltman. I remember having seen very
few exceptions, but I could never find them back;
hence my question if anyone had any specific
examples.

Assuming that it is indeed a 'rule' of the VMs
author that these characters should only appear
at top lines of paragraphs, we have two questions
which may help us understand the VMs better:

1. What is behind this rule
2. Why are there exceptions

For 2, one can think of 'mistakes' but I have 
another idea I'd like to test. Arabic MS's (but also
some in the Latin alphabet) occasionally have
'flourishes' as extensions to the normal letters
whenever there is space in the MS available, i.e.
typically at the top lines of paragraphs. It is
quite possible that the VMs author was just
trying to 'mimic' this, and in some cases this
seems quite a likely explanation. There are some
so-called 'weirdo' characters, one in particular
which has a little Michelin man attached to it.
The so-called split gallows are another example.

It is also possible that the VMs author was
transcribing text from a MS that had this
feature, and if, occasionally the lines in the
original text were longer than the space he had
available, such gallows could also appear on 
second or perhaps third lines of paragraphs.

In any case, if these gallows are merely ornamental,
then either they are like 'nulls' or they are
like beautified versions of other characters.
A consistent explanation has not yet been found.
Maybe there was no consistent 'rule'.

Cheers, Rene 

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