From time to time I revisit the Voynich manuscript. This is - if you are not aware of it - one of the strangest and most mysterious books in the world. A medieval manuscript, it was brought to light by the book collector Voynich in 1912. It is written in an unknown script and language that has yet to be decoded. Consequently it attracts the attention of cryptologists and book sleuths who are attempting to unravel its many mysteries. It is clearly a herbal of some sort, and includes what seems to be an astrological section, but since we cannot decode a single word of the text, we can be certain about little else.
Since i last had a good look at it, however, some certainty has firmed in at least one regard: the date of the materials used in its construction. Carbon dating tests have at long last been conducted on the vellum of the manuscript and has established - with what the scientists claim to be 95% certainty - a date between 1404 and 1438. I am less sanguine about that degree of exactitude, but in any case we are looking at the first half of the 1400s. Previously, we were just guessing. Now we can narrow it down to a time period. Or at least we can say that the vellum used in the manuscript is from that time period.
It is possible that vellum from that period survived for a while before it was written on, but much more likely that the book was made not long after the vellum. We can date the vellum - the book is very likely to have been written not long after. To my mind, therefore, I think it becomes almost certain that the work is a production of the 1400s. Vellum made in the early or mid 1400s is not likely to remain intact and used into the 1500s.
This is encouraging, I think. I accept it as some (reasonably) firm ground. There has been so little terra firma thus far in Voynich studies that any clues are welcome. I have no reason to question the carbon dating, and even if we allow a wider margin of error that the scientists might claim, we can now roughly date the Voynich ms. and so eliminate other possible datings. Others have suggested 1300s and many more have suggested 1600s as the production date. We can now say with some confidence, no, 1400s.
Other things firm up around this dating. Most impressive to me is the style of the script. Others have previously noted that the style of the script strongly suggests Carolingian minuscule among known scribal styles. This was a very widely used style in medieval manuscripts beginning in the Carolingian renaissance. It is open and clear and was used by Latin scribes. Its use faded in the later Middle Ages but, importantly, was revived in Italy in the 1400s. The Italian renaissance scribes looked back to the classical clarity of the Carolingians and regarded the style we know as Carolingian minuscule as the authentic ancient style.
Given a (rough) dating we can now say with some confidence that the observation that the style resembles Carolingian minuscule is probably correct. It is likely that the Voynich Ms. is a product of the revival of that style in the 1400s. Less certainly, we might also speculate that the manuscript was made in Italy or at least by an Italian scribe trained in that style. Previously, we had only a resemblance of orthographical styles - the carbon dating of the vellum now underlines that resemblance. We can be sure that the manuscript is not from the Carolingian renaissance, so it must be from the later Italian renaissance when this style of writing came back into vogue.
Here are samples of the script, first the Voynich and then Carolingian minuscule:
On the strength of this, I want to say that it is now best to proceed on the basis that the Voynich is a product of 1400s Italy. That certainly narrows it down a bit. It gives us a broad context. Previously we were fumbling through the centuries with little idea. Others might still contest this, but for myself I think it would now be a waste of time to dally after other possible datings. The best chance of getting results is to go with the 1400s dating. Italian quattrocento - probably earlier in the century than later.
* * *
A recent attempt at solving the mysteries of the Voynich has involved identifying and naming the plants illustrated in the herbal section. This is very uncertain territory because no one can agree on which plants are which. All identifications are hotly contested. The botany of the Voynich is therefore not very useful as solid ground. All identifications are conjecture. For simple methodological reasons, I think trying to crack the code via the botany is not a sensible way to proceed.
But again, given a more solid dating, other aspects of the work firm up. Or, indeed, they become more problematic. Regarding the botany, any dating in the 1400s would seem to rule out identifications of any of the plants as New World botany. Columbus didn't sail the ocean blue until 1492. A dating in the (early to mid) 1400s must count against those who claim the plants in the work are from the Americas. Instead, it must count in favour of those who identify them as plants known in the Old World and/or imaginary plants.
There are, it must be said, many exotic plants depicted. And the depictions are sometimes crude and often strange. But we can at least say now that they are unlikely to be plants from the Americas. The exotic ones, therefore, must be from nearer to Italy (or Europe more broadly).
Personally, I am happy about some proposed plant identifications, such as this one proposed by Edith Sherwood:
On balance, I think this probably is a picture of a banana (look at those fronds!). We cannot say for sure, and there might be any number of objections made, but it sure looks like a banana plant to me. This would be interesting, because the banana was cultivated by and was distributed by Muslims. Muslim traders took the plant from South East Asia and introduced it throughout the Muslim world, especially in Africa. But it was growing in Cyprus by the later Middle Ages, and the Italian traveller Capodalista wrote about them in the late 1450s. They were therefore a known plant, albeit exotic and the commercial preserve of the Muslims.
All of this confirms a general proposition I have had since I first encountered the Voynich MS. It has always seemed very likely to me that it contains knowledge that is in the process of being transmitted from the Muslim world to the Christian world. That is why it is encoded. Many things - especially alchemical and medical knowledge - took an "occult" form when they moved from one world to the other. The Church and other authorities frowned upon and were deeply suspicious of Muslim learning. Against this, though, people were desperate to acquire it. Often that acquisition had to happen through clandestine avenues and was not always a safe trade to be in.
I want to therefore conjecture that that is what we have before us: a book detailing exotic herbal and astrological and alchemical lore that probably had its prototype in Arabic or perhaps Turkish influence since the single most significant geopolitical event of the 1400s was the fall of Byzantium to the Turks in the middle of the century. Many things point in this direction. I will make my case in a later post.
