Re: VMs: dating the VMs

["Philip Neal" <philipneal_vms@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: "Maurizio M. Gavioli" <mmg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

> Well, again, yes and no. The entire _peciae_ system of the medieval 
> universities, albeit very specialized, is an example of intermediate vellum 
> steps. I still have to finish downloading the Japanese repros, so I still 
> have not seen the WHOLE ms., but I have already seen not a few pages of 
> irregular shape (at least to judge from the repros); this MIGHT mean that 
> the ms. has been done on 'second-choice' skins or on left-overs of other 
> codices; if this is true (and assuming the writer did attached a 
> non-secondary importance to the ms.), this MIGHT be another clue of a 
> 'draft' ms. from which, say, 'better' copies would be taken later (or 
> simply that he could not afford better skins! ;-) )

Peciae! You clearly know something about manuscripts. I have posted
some thoughts on questions of this kind on my pages:

http://mysite.freeserve.com/philipneal_vms/construction.html

I think it is important to remember that books about palaeography
tend to concentrate on the impressive, well constructed manuscripts.
There are lots of scrappy, amateurish manuscripts which tend to get
left out of the discussion. Go to this page

http://www.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/hs/hs-online.htm

and contrast the beautiful illuminated bibles and books of poetry with
workaday tracts like Marburg 17.1 and Marburg 17.3 with their rough
margins and script overflowing the lines. I know from my work on
mediaeval sermons years ago that there are a huge number of manuscripts
like these two, but they tend to be the last to get photographed or
scanned.

When you have a copy of the entire Voynich manuscript it would be
good to have your opinion on the marginalia as a whole. I am particularly
interested in the dating of the quire marks. They were presumably added
shortly after the MS was written, and it seems to me that the forms of
the numerals used are perceptibly older than the numerals used in the
page numbering. Would you agree with me that the quire marks are
typical of the 15th century and the page numberings have a 16th
century appearance?

Philip Neal

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