Re: VMs: Latin Palaeography - Bernhard Bischoff

[Arqy0plex@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 9/30/2004 2:28:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time, John.Koontz@xxxxxxxxxxxx writes:


> 5. Ciphers
>
> The middle ages had a peculiar, playful relationship with cipers.  They
> were used in many cases in which actual concealment was neither called for
> nor earnestly intended.  German writing practice is especally rich in
> these.  According to the short tract De inuentione linguarum (instead of
> litterarum), published by Melchior Goldfast under the name of Hrabanus
> Maurus, Boniface transmitted two systems of cipher in which the vowels a e
> i o u were expressed by points or by the immediately following consonants
> b f k p x; the latter system goes back to antiquity.  English examples of
> the use of this cipher make the tradition plausible.  In Germany from the
> ninth century on countless OHG glosses were written using both systems.
> Other ciphers use the numerals for the vowels or for the letters [all
> letter, or the consonants? jek], depending on their position in the
> alphabet.  A further source of secret scripts was foreign alphabets, as
> they occur in the above mentioned tract and, not infrequently, in other
> manuscript collections:  runes (in later manuscripts often designated
> 'Syrian', 'Arabic', or 'Saracen' (!) [! in the origianl - jek], Greek,
> Hebrew, and the alphabet of the so-called Aethicus Ister.  In addition
> there are freely composed symbol alphabets which may have served for
> personal use or as ciphers [of which Viynichese in the VMs is presumably
> an example - jek].  A favorite method, finally, is the inversion of the
> word or syllable.  The amalgamation of several methods is also found.
> Ciphers are employed in the later middle ages above all in scribal
> subscriptions, receipts, and charms, especially of a superstitious nature.

Speaking of ciphers.... This pastime was apparently popular among 9th - 10th century scribes:
(Apologies for lack of more details. This is just out of some notes I had jotted down for later reference.)
 Page 27 of "The Cambridge Juvencus" (Helen McKee, CMCS Publications, 2000 ed.) mentions a cryptogram that "uses a code based on the Greek letters used for the numbers 1 to 23, each of which replaces the appropriate Latin letter in the inscription." (There was at least half a page of commentary, plus the translation, etc.)