A New Authorship Theory for the Voynich Manuscript

Keagan Brewer

At supper this evening, I told my son that the biggest mystery in the world is what other people are thinking: and really, that is perhaps at the heart of why the Voynich Manuscript is the biggest mystery ever - because we still cannot reconstruct what its author was thinking. It is this absence of rapport that opens up the possibility for mad, bad, and bizarre theories: because we can project onto the manuscript whatever feelings and thoughts we like. - Nick Pelling1

The knowledge presented in the Voynich Manuscript2 is of a very specific nature. While it has long been recognised that the treatise has its roots in a number of different medieval textual genres herbal, astrological, pharmaceutical, gynaecological, astronomical, medical, balneological the true import of this has never been fully recognised. If our author had the knowledge to treat such subjects, then the Voynich Manuscript has an ideological paper trail. Anyone able to write a text such as this must have been an impressive polymath, with interests and expertise in the scientific fields suggested by the manuscript's illustrations, and with knowledge of cryptological practices. Therefore, a full understanding of the development of herbology, astrology, gynaecology, etc. (and cryptology) in the period we are looking at should be of great benefit to our understanding of the text, its author, its language and the information it contains. As it turns out, such an investigation has proven to be extremely valuable. Based on this 'ideological paper trail', I will be suggesting a candidate for the authorship of this text, one which is far more convincing than any presented thus far, and which explains every major anomaly presented by this curious manuscript.

But before we approach our central topic, it is very important when dealing with the Voynich Manuscript to begin with a blank slate, because much of the previous work done on it has proceeded under false assumptions and has therefore arrived at false conclusions.3 The text of the
1

The Voynich Manuscript for Real People, http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2008/07/28/the-voynich-manuscriptfor-real-people (Accessed on 14/06/09). 2 The manuscript is named after Wilfrid Voynich, who discovered it in the Villa Mondragone in Italy in 1912. Today it forms part of the holdings of the Beinecke Library at Yale University, where it is catalogued as MS.408, but I will refer to it by its more common name: the Voynich Manuscript. I am indebted to the good folks at the Beinecke Library for making the manuscript available to the public via their website. I have followed the Beinecke Library Website's pagination for all references to the manuscript throughout this paper. 3 The standard textbook on Voynich studies is Mary d'Imperio, The Voynich Manuscript: an Elegant Enigma (Laguna Hills, California: Aegean Park Press, 1978).

manuscript could represent one of a few possibilities: an unknown natural language, a known natural language in an unknown naturally-evolved script, a known language deliberately concealed in cipher, an artificially constructed language and script, or a complete hoax. A little uncommon sense can rule out several of these possibilities. Its western European origin, which will be demonstrated below, rules out the possibility of it being an unknown natural language, or a known language in an unknown naturally-evolved script. The notion that it is a hoax perpetuated by the desire for fiscal gain is the explanation only of small minded men who wish to summarily explain away a manuscript with levels of complexity beyond their own mental capacity. This leaves us with only two credible possibilities for our manuscript: it is either a known European language deliberately concealed in cipher or a completely artificial language in the same vein as Hildegard of Bingen's lingua ignota, or John Dee's Angelic language (usually known by the misnomer Enochian). Linguistic analysis suggests that the Voynich language generally follows the rules of natural languages (eg. Zipf's Law4), implying that the most likely candidate is that it is a natural language concealed in cipher, which is the most commonly accepted theory amongst students of the manuscript.5

If this is the case, then we are faced with the inevitable question: why encipher the text? This question is usually answered summarily by invoking the idea of the 'Galileo Effect', i.e. fear of repression at the hands of the church. The case of Galileo is probably the best known example of ecclesiastical repression of science, but it is only one example of many in the late middle ages, and is thus a plausible phenomenon. But this 'Galileo Effect' explanation presents yet another question: if our author put the text in cipher out of fear of the church uncovering its subversive doctrines, why

4 Zipfs Law states that the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in a frequency table, thus each word will occur roughly twice as often as the second most frequent word, which occurs twice as often as the fourth most frequent word, etc. 5 Gabriel Landini, Evidence of linguistic structure in the Voynich manuscript using spectral analysis, Cryptologia, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3926/is_200110/ai_n8973053/ (Accessed on 7/9/09). This article also rules out the possibility of use of a polyalphabetic cipher method such as the Vignre Table.

would he also include illustrations which suggest this subversiveness? After all, if modern commentators, basing their ideas on the illustrations alone, think that the manuscript is something the church would have wanted repressed, then a suspicious medieval churchman, basing his ideas on the illustrations alone, could easily have come to the same conclusion. The Galileo Effect thus seems to be an illogical explanation for the purpose behind the encipherment. The knowledge presented in the Voynich Manuscript must have been dangerous for some reason other than potential theological controversy. As it turns out, the theory to be presented below explains this anomaly much more neatly than the Galileo Effect explanation, and accounts for the presence of both a ciphered text and detailed illustrations.

A discussion of the manuscript's provenance and dating will also be of initial importance, although no consensus has thus far been reached about either of these issues. First, it must be shown that the manuscript is part of European traditions. The first piece of evidence for this is the writing itself. While obviously not written in Latin script, it is quite clear from the handwriting that the writer had received training as a scribe writing in Latin script. The consistency and neatness of the pen-strokes shows that he/she was well-educated and possessed a well-practised hand, and the text shows parallels with conventions of European palaeography, such as the occasional flourishes of ornamentation, initial letter capitalisation and other design elements.

The second piece of evidence pointing towards a European origin for the Voynich Manuscript is that the writing is written from left to right (and from top to bottom), as easily proved by an examination of the text:

Notice that the left side is aligned, whereas the right side is not, and that the final line of the paragraph ends in the middle of the page. Faced with such evidence, it is safe to say that the text is written from right to left, and from top to bottom, the usual writing configuration used in European languages.

The clearest evidence for its origin can be found in the depictions of human figures, which strongly suggest a European aesthetic. Those figures who are not naked are wearing clothes and hats of obviously European character (top left). And to top it all off, the figures are unanimously white-skinned, with golden-blonde hair and makeup. Furthermore, although at the outset the manuscript seems to be lacking in Christian iconography, a close inspection reveals one of our naked women to be carrying what is unmistakably a crucifix (bottom left). Also, there are several parts of the manuscript written in Latin script (presumably by second or third hands).6 While none of these things alone is definite proof that it was written by a European, the accretion of these various hints suggests convincingly that the manuscript is part of medieval European traditions.

Further evidence for its European origin can be adduced from the alphabetic nature of the Voynich text, which contains somewhere between 25 and 30 symbols depending on how you break it down.
6 See the month names on ff.70r-73v, the strange postscript on f.116v, the small writing at the top of f.17r (which seems to match the postscript), and below in the present paper for the ordinals on ff.8v, 16v, 24v, 32v, 40v, 48v, 56v, 66v, 67r1, 70v, 72v, 84v, 86r2, 90v, 96v, 102v, & 103r.

Logographic scripts like Chinese (where each symbol represents an idea rather than a unit of sound) contain tens of thousands of different characters, while syllabaries (where each symbol represents a syllable) generally contain between 50 and 100 characters. On the other hand, alphabets (where each symbol represents a single sound) generally have between 20 and 36 symbols.7 The Voynich is clearly placed within this latter category. Of course, within the category of alphabet are a number of possibilities which should be borne in mind. Our text could be written as an abjad, i.e. a script where vowels are not represented. Other possibilities include the possible presence of cryptographic nulls (fake letters to confuse would-be decipherers), accented letters and other now extinct letters which appear in European vernacular languages (circumflex [], grave [] and acute [] accents and cedillas [] in French, umlauts [, , , and ] and the 'double s' symbol [] in German, etc.), and various other tricky cryptological traps. The fact that the manuscript has defied some of the greatest cryptologists of the 20th century suggests that the system is particularly complex.

The possibility that our writer made use of the conventions of medieval Latin manuscript abbreviation must also be kept in mind. Indeed, given our manuscript's European origins, it is almost impossible that our writer didn't know about them, even if he didn't use them as a part of his cipher. In fact, many of the Voynich symbols themselves seem to have parallels with Latin manuscript abbreviations, as noted and explored by d'Imperio.8 Several of d'Imperio's connections seem to be quite substantiable. At the bottom right hand corner of certain folios appear small notes which are part of some sort of ordinal series. These notes seem to be written in the same ink and handwriting as the Voynich text itself, although this is conjectural. The first one (on f.8v) is extremely telling . The first letter is quite obviously a 'p' topped with an abbreviation

marker, followed by 'm' and then the Voynich symbol reminiscent of our modern '9' or 'g'. The superscript abbreviation above the initial 'p' is exactly the same as one used throughout the middle
7 Robinson, Lost Languages, p.42 8 DImperio, p.95

ages to denote the addition of an 'r'; when added to a 'p' this often denotes the prefix 'prae'/'pre'.9 The final '9' symbol was also a common Latin abbreviation for '-s' or '-us'. Given that this word is the first in an ordinal series, the word we have before us must be none other than 'primus'. If this is the case, then this may give the '9' symbol the phonetic value of 's' or 'us'. This seems to be in keeping with the role of the '9' in the text, since it frequently appears at the end of words and could be explained as the common Latin ending '-us', or as one of many forms of the genitive enclitic suffix in vernacular languages (like the 's in Jane's dog).

Taking this word as primus, the interpretation of the rest of the ordinal series falls quite quickly. For (f.16v) is none other than secundus (2nd), (4th). When it comes to quintus ( (f.24v) is tertius (3rd), and (f.32v) is quartus

f.40v) and sextus (

f.48v), our scribe gave us more proof for

the present argument by adding a 't', because of course the Latin for 5 is quinque and for 6 is sex, so adding the -us symbol to quinque or sex would supply quinus or sexus, which should correctly be quintus and sextus. We see the same thing occuring with the seventh ordinal, but the 'm' the author adds is superfluous here ( f.56v), because 7 in Latin is septem and converting this to the

ordinal septimus (7th) should only require the addition of the -us symbol to make septimus. Perhaps our author is thinking in a vernacular language where the base form of 7 is 'sept' only?

The ordinal series continues through 8th, with our writer supplying the extra 'u' to build octauus from the base form octo ( and the -us symbol ( f.66v). Ditto, novem (9) becomes nonus (9th) by the addition of a 'n' f.67r1). Just like with the 7th ordinal, our writer adds a superfluous 'm' to f.70v). We see the same thing for the conversion from undecim to f.72v). Twelfth is absent (it was probably on f.74, which is missing), and

convert decem to decimus ( undecimus for 11 (

9 Adriano Cappelli, Lexicon Abbreviaturarum, (Milano: OFSA, 1973), p.257

thirteenth does not add the superfluous 'm' for some reason, even though the word terdecimus is built from decimus ( f.84v). Ditto for 14th ( f.86r2), 15th ( f.90v) and 17th ( f.96v).

16th and 18th are missing, again probably appearing on missing folios (ff.91/2 & 97/8). 19th (undevicesimus) and 20th (vicesimus) appear most bizarrely as just numbers without the without 'm' or the -us symbol ( f.102v; f.103r).

[So that modern readers unfamiliar with medieval numerals do not become disillusioned by the fact that these numbers do not look exactly the same as ours, it will be instructive to compare those given above to the numerals found in other manuscripts from a similar period. See the example to the right, which is taken from a late 15th century German manuscript10].

As far as the meaning of these ordinals is concerned, this is entirely obscure. What exactly are they meant to be counting? The first seven occur at exact intervals of 8 folios apart, but the sequence after this becomes entirely arbitrary. They occur throughout the manuscript, in all the various different sections, usually in the bottom right hand corner of the verso pages. It is also imperative to note that these ordinals might not be in the hand of the original writer. The similarity in the ink and the penmanship suggests that they are, but this is no more than an educated guess. If an analysis of the carbon content of these 'page numbers' were to be carried out, then they could possibly elucidate for certain what is now remains only a probability: that the Voynich manuscript's writer knew and made use of the conventions of medieval Latin manuscript abbreviation.

In introducing the Voynich Manuscript, the ideology of celestial influence must be mentioned, especially since it may be a point of confusion for some modern students unfamiliar with the medieval worldview. The conflagration of mundane plants, naked women and diagrams of the

10 Heidelberg, Universittsbibliothek, Cod. Pal. Germ. 832, f.14r

heavens is no aberration of logic; indeed, it is entirely in keeping with medieval ideologies regarding celestial influence and the flow of movements from the macrocosm to the microcosm (see f.68v1). In medieval conception, everything in the terrestrial spheres was the subject of celestial influence. According to Robert Grosseteste:
Natural philosophy needs the assistance of astronomy [astronomia] more than of the rest of the sciences, for there are no, or few, works of ours or of nature, as for example the propagation of plants, the transmutation of minerals, the curing of sickness, which can be removed from the sway of astronomy. For nature below effects nothing unless celestial power moves it and directs it from potency into act.11

Such beliefs did not always lead to theological controversy, as one might expect, since according to a relatively popular belief, celestial influence was a gift granted by God to the stars:
As God gave their powers to stones and to herbs and to words, so also he gave power to the stars, that they have power over all things... They have power over trees and over vines, over leaves and grasses, over vegetables and herbs, over corn and all such things; over the birds in the air, over the animals in the forests, and over the fishes in the water, and over the worms in the earth; over all such things that are under heaven, over them the Lord gave power to the stars.12

These writers were not inhabitants of an ideological fringe, but the intellectual heavyweights of their respective eras, and their opinions here are representative of the general thrust of medieval ideology regarding the matter of celestial influence.13 Thus, the presence of cosmological diagrams, plants and naked women is obviously connected in some way with this idea of celestial influence over the terrestrial realms.

As far as the dating of the manuscript is concerned, evidence uncovered by Voynich places the manuscript in Bohemia sometime between 1608 and 1622, and thus it must have been written before then.14 Attempts have been made to pull the date back further, but they have been unconvincing.15 But the date of the manuscript's creation has been a point of contention. The

11 Robert Grosseteste, following Peter Whitfield, Astrology: A History, (London: British Library, 2001), p.101 12 Berthold of Regensburg, following Whitfield, Astrology: A History, pp.101-5 13 Edward Grant, Planets, Stars and Orbs: the Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp.569-617 14 The details have already been well-discussed and need not be repeated here. See d'Imperio, pp.1-4. 15 One such attempt, for example, rested on a note in the diary of the son of John Dee, saying that he had seen his father working with a manuscript containing nothing but heiroglyphicks. Dee, of course, was involved with all

opinions of previous writers have varied from the 12th through to the 16th century. D'Imperio, writing in 1978, made a rough tally of these opinions.16 Her results were as follows:

Dates 1250-1399 1400-1550

Score 5 12

To this, she added her belief that this summary of expert opinion does, in fact, lend considerable weight to a relatively late date for the manuscript.17 In support of this is also the fact that, statistically speaking, the 15th century was the height of interest in herbology. 193 manuscripts from the 15th century containing herbals have survived, compared to the 136 enumerated from the preceding nine centuries, although more 15th century manuscripts also exist for all subjects.18

Another clue pointing to the manuscript's 'lateness' is the fact that the intersection of cosmology and botany seems to have been a largely later phenomenon. Although the theory that plants were objects governed by celestial influence was always there, the creation of practical handbooks outlining when certain plants should be planted and sown according to the positions of the sun, the moon and the planets seems to have been a largely 15th and 16th century phenomenon, as also was the creation of a new genre of 'alchemical herbals'.19 Prior to this, the herbal genre was fairly stagnant; the number of herbal texts in circulation before this period could almost be counted on one hand, and

16 17 18 19

sorts of studies involving symbols: alchemy, magic, glossolalia, occultism, as well as the creation of his own language (which for the record seems to have little import on the Voynich Manuscript). See d'Imperio, pp.3-4, 61-3, 120-3 The table is from d'Imperio, p.9. The only person to suggest the 12th century for our text was Leo Levitov, Solution of the Voynich Manuscript, (Laguna Hills, California: Aegean Park Press, 1987), p.21 D'Imperio, p.9. Minta Collins, Medieval Herbals: the Illustrative Traditions, (London: The British Library, 2000), p.278 Collins, Medieval Herbals: the Illustrative Traditions, p.279; Stefania Ragazzini, Un erbario del XV secolo: Il MS 106 della Biblioteca di Botanica dellUniversit di Firenze, (Florence: Accademia La Colombaria, 1983); Tullia Gasparrini Leporace, Gino Pollacci & Siro Luigi Maffei, Un inedito erbario farmaceutico medioevale, (Florence: Olschki, 1952); Di Sana Pianta, (Modena: Panini, 1988); Vera Segre Rutz, Le piante della Luna, in Laurent Golay & Philippe Lscher (eds.), Florilegium, scritti di storia dellarte in onore di Carlo Bertelli, (Milan: Electa, 1995); Michelangelo Lupo, Lerbario di Trento, il MS n.1591 del Museo Provinciale dArte, (Toranto: Manfrini, 1978); Stefania Rossi Minutelli, Erbario anonimo del XV secolo Codice Marciano It. Z. 78, (Venice: Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia, 1980).

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none of them were particularly concerned with the kind of cosmology we find in the Voynich Manuscript.20 Minta Collins, in her thorough description of the manuscripts of these few texts, does not make a single mention of any cosmological diagram. Her study stops being intensely detailed at the 15th century because the number and variety of herbal manuscripts surviving from the fifteenth century precludes detailed individual description.21 During this period, herbal illustration was much revived and expanded, and new herbals written in vernacular languages began to coexist with the long-standing Latin traditions.

In describing the close of the 15th century, Collins states: the contemporary development in painting plants from nature, the invention of printing and the discovery of exotic plants from overseas led to the demise of the manuscript herbals and their traditions of illustrations handed down from one generation to another.22 These trends meant that the textual genre took on new forms in the 15th century. While earlier scribes had been accustomed to simply copy the works of the ancient botanists like Dioscorides23, three traditions can be discerned in the 15th century: 1) the continuation of the previous tradition of reliance on ancient authorities;24 2) a new type of scientific botany based on personal observation and independent reasoning (as opposed to the characteristically medieval unquestioning acceptance of ancient auctoritas); and 3) the intermingling of botany and the occult ideologies which were gaining new currency (especially 'magic', alchemy and Hermetic astrology).25 This 15th century diversification of what was earlier
20 Collins, Medieval Herbals: the Illustrative Traditions; Alain Touwaide, Botany and Humanism in the Renaissance: Background, Interaction, Contradictions, in Therese O'Malley & Amr R.W. Meyers (eds.), The Art of Natural History: Illustrated Treatises and Botanical Paintings, 1400-1850, (London: Yale University Press, 2008), pp.3362; the various articles in Jerry Stannard, Pristina Medicamenta, (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum Reprints: 1999). 21 Collins, Medieval Herbals: The Illustrative Traditions, p.278 22 Ibid., p.283 23 See Collins, Medieval Herbals: the Illustrative Traditions, pp.148-238 24 For a stunningly beautiful example of a 14th century herbal manuscript in the Tractatis de herbis tradition, see Collins (ed.), A Medieval Herbal: a Facsimile of British Library Egerton MS 747, (London: The British Library, 2003). 25 Collins, Medieval Herbals: the Illustrative Traditions, pp.278-283; above, footnote 19. This last trend was also given further impetus by the translation of ancient Greek texts into Latin at this very late stage, like Theophrastus treatises, known in Latin as De Historia Plantarum & De Causis Plantarum, which were both unknown in the Middle Ages until Theodoros of Gazas translations of 1453/4; see the translation from the Greek made by Benedict

11

such a stagnant textual genre is the context in which we must place the Voynich Manuscript.

Based on this mixture of the occult and the botanical in the Voynich Manuscript, Leonell Strong suggested that the author of the manuscript was a certain Anthony Askham, who penned a herbal in 1550.26 Although Strong admitted to not having had access to Askham's herbal, he claimed to have deciphered parts of the Voynich text, which included Askham's signature.27 The alarm bells probably rang for Strong when he read the title of Askham's herbal: A little herball of the properties of herbes... declaring what herbes hath influence of certain sterres and constellations, whereby maye be chosen the best and most lucky tymes and dayes of their ministracion, according to the Moone beyng in the signes of heaven [etc.].28 In reality, apart from the occasional reference to certain herbs being best plucked in certain months, and one herb known as Asterion which apparently gains one leaf per day as the moon is waxing and loses one per day while the moon is waning, Askham's herbal has precious little to do with the stars, the sun and moon and so on. Thus, the identification of Askham as the author must be rejected, although Strong's theory is probably one of the better attempts to locate an author for the Voynich Manuscript, since it shows an awareness that the man who wrote it must have been linked with the intellectual development of both herbal and cosmological knowledge.

The astrological knowledge presented in the Voynich Manuscript has been little understood by modern students, myself included. Although it is obvious that there is a set of folios with diagrammatic representations of the star signs (on ff.70r-73v), the exact meaning of these diagrams remains unclear. On each of these diagrams, the symbols of the star signs, with month names

Einarson & George Link, (London: Heinemann, 1990), 3 vols. 26 Leonell C. Strong, Anthony Askham the Author of the Voynich Manuscript, Science: New Series, Vol.101, No.2633 (June, 1945), pp.608-609 27 Ibid., p.608 28 Anthony Askham, A little herball, (London: 1550), available via the Early English Books Online website: www.eebo.chadwyck.com

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inscribed by a different hand, occupy the centre of a circle surrounded by text layers and women carrying stars with labels. There is an important distinction to be made here since the month names are a later hand, the diagrams are about star signs, not months. Further evidence for this can be adduced from the consistent association of the star signs with the number 30. There are precisely 30 women in each of the astrological folios. Our author was very concerned to have specifically 30, since he added women outside his diagram on some folios to make up the precise number (ff.71v3, 73r & 73v). The exception here is the Pisces diagram (f.70r), which has only 29 women. This anomaly led d'Imperio to conclude that the diagrams contain approximately thirty female figures, which is true, but she failed to notice the important, anomalous text inside the central circle near the two fish of Pisces.29 Thus, the 29 labelled women and the solitary label inside the circle make up the full 30 for Pisces.

What is the significance of the number 30? The ambiguity about the Pisces diagram and the misguided assumption that the diagrams are representative of the months of the year have been sources of confusion. As far as the division of the months is concerned, medieval people followed the same calendar we do today, i.e. 30 days for April, June, September and November, with 31 for the rest except for February with 28, or 29 on a leap year.30 Thus, the medieval year was divided in the same way as ours into 365 days, not 360 (the sum of 30 for each of the 12 star signs). Thus, the precise division of these astrological diagrams into 30 cannot be representative of the division of the months into days.

Rather, the division of star signs into 30 is representative of an astrological doctrine known to historians of astrology as monomonoia.31 According to monomonoia, a system originally espoused

29 D'Imperio, p.16 30 See Byrhtferth of Ramsey, Enchiridion, pp.22-5, 56-79 31 I owe this observation to Dr. David Juste. See Auguste Buch-Leclercq, LAstrologie Grecque, (Paris: Culture et Civilisation, 1963 reprint of 1899 original); Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, J.M. Ashmand (trans.), Ptolemys Tetrabiblos,

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by the ancient Greeks, but popular in the later middle ages, each star sign is divided into 3 'decans' which each consist of 10 'terms' (a.k.a. 'degrees'). Each of these terms is then associated with one of the 5 non-luminary planets (Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn), each of which have certain characteristics which then allow the astrologer to make readings and predictions based on the association of the planet with elemental properties (cold, hot, dry, wet, earth, air, fire, water, red choler, black choler, blood and phlegm as per Artistotelian and Galenic theory). Unfortunately for Voynich purposes, these 'terms' never seem to have had names which might be substituted for the labels. The 'decans', on the other hand, did have names, some of which are recorded in their Latin form in the Liber Hermetis, an astrological manual which makes up part of the 'technical' (as opposed to 'philosophical) Hermetic corpus.32 These decan names may form part of the circles of text in these astrological diagrams.

Other parts of the cosmological section show that our author possessed a wide knowledge of astrology, especially the division of certain diagrams into night and day (ff.67r1, 68v3). This diurnal/nocturnal dichotomy was part of an awareness that the stars and planets do not disappear when they set, but that they go 'below' the earth.33 To these must be added the other cosmological elements in the Voynich Manuscript: the possible wind diagram on f.57v34, the possible star/constellation names on f.68r35, the possible TO map in the centre of the diagram which seems to depict celestial influence (on f.68v3), the possible representation of the four ages of man on
(Salisbury, Queensland: Spica Publications, 1976), pp.32-7; Guido Bonatti, Liber Astronomiae, Robert Zoller & Robert Hand (trans.), (Salisbury, Queensland: Spica Publications, 1998), pp.27-8; Liber Hermetis, Robert Zoller (trans.) & Robert Hand (ed.), (Salisbury, Queensland: Spica Publications, 1998), pp.27-43, 72-77, see especially Zollers explanatory note on p.71; Paulus Alexandrinus, Robert Schmidt (trans.) & Robert Hand (ed.), Introductory Matters, (Berkeley Springs: Golden Hind Press, 1993), p.78. Liber Hermetis, pp.27-43 Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, p.15 Barbara Obrist, Wind Diagrams and Medieval Cosmology, Speculum, Vol.72, No.1 (January, 1997), pp.33-84 Unfortunately, Gerard of Cremona's Latin translation of Ptolemy's Almagest remains to be published, thus I have been unable to compare the Latin star names which would have been current in 15th century Europe with the Voynich text. Paul Kunitzsch stated in 1986 that the publication of such a list was imminent, but it has thus far not appeared. Paul Kunitzsch, Star Catalogues and Star Tables in Medaeval Oriental and European Astronomy, Indian Journal of History of Science, Vol.21 (1986), pp.113-122, especially footnote 20, p.121 [this article is also reprinted in Paul Kunitzsch, The Arabs and the Stars, (Northampton: Variorum Reprints, 1989)].

32 33 34 35

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f.85v1, and the possibly-cosmological, possibly-biological, definitely-bizarre diagram on f.86v.

The other scientific tradition which the Voynich Manuscript obviously pays homage to is gynaecology, known in the Middle Ages as the genre of 'women's secrets' literature. The idea of trying to place our text in this genre has received virtually no attention from Voynich students, perhaps as a result of the discouraging words of Mary d'Imperio:
It seems strange... that so many students have become obsessively preoccupied with gynaecological or sexual interpretations of the text. The presence of the scattering of quite unexceptionably matronly little nude figures on a small proportion of folios seems to me an entirely insufficient justification for this obsession.36

D'Imperio is right to suggest that the nude figures occur only on a relatively small number of folios, but what she doesn't take into account is the fact that these few folios contain by far the greatest proportion of text compared to any other part of the manuscript. Based on this, it seems fair to suggest that the Voynich Manuscript has some aspect of gynaecology as its central theme. Of course, this is entirely logical; if the text had plants or astrology as its central theme, then why would there be naked women at all? And how else are we to explain the presence of naked women only, and not also men?

The science of gynaecology and reproduction was particularly popular in the later Middle Ages, as dictated by necessity, and as demonstrated by the remarkable amount of material of this nature which has survived from the period.37 The traditions of this field were far less standardised than other areas of medieval science, and depended on a curious mixture of both Galenic ideologies and the personal observations of physicians. Such physicians were usually, but not always, male.38 Different types of text were aimed at different audiences, but they were usually written by men for

36 D'Imperio, p.36 37 Green, Medieval Gynecological Literature: A Handlist, in Green, Womens Healthcare in the Medieval West: Texts and Contexts, (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2000) 38 Monica H. Green, Womens Medical Practice and Health Care in Medieval Europe, J. Bennet et al. (eds.), Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages, (Chicago: 1989), pp.39-78 [Also reprinted in Green, Womens Healthcare in the Medieval West: Texts and Contexts, (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2000)].

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the practical use or scientific curiosity of other men (texts written by women, like Hildegard of Bingen's Causa et Curae were incredibly rare, and usually echoed what the men wrote anyway).39

Although the doctrines of medieval sexual and reproductive theory were far from standardised, one idea that was almost unanimously agreed upon was the role of celestial influence on various aspects of female sexuality and motherhood, including menstrual cycles, success or failure of impregnation, formation of the embryo, libido and infertility.40 Hence we read that women have their periods in accordance with the phases of the moon, which move through stages of varying elemental evolution: the first phase being sanguinous, hot and humid; the second being choleric, hot and dry; and so on.41 By the same token, the star sign and planetary house a child is born under affect the disposition of their personality traits, a common theme in the complex doctrines of natal astrology.42

To the modern mind, medieval gynaecology is a particularly anomalous creature even amongst the other fields of medieval science. This is because it is a discipline so dichotomously split in two, with remarkably insightful observations on the one hand (like the relatively cogent knowledge of the generation of a human foetus within the womb resulting from the admixture of male and female generative components43) and complete absurdities on the other (such as the assertion that serpents can be generated from the hairs of a menstruating woman if planted in the ground44, or, my personal favourite, that if any man eats sage which has been ejaculated on by a cat, then he will begin to

39 Ibid., pp.72-3 40 See any of the primary sources in P.G. Mazwell-Stuart (trans.), The Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History, (New York: St. Martins Press, 1999), pp.95-104; Hannes Kstner, Der Arzt und die Kosmographie, in Ludger Grenzmann & Karl Stackmann (eds.), Literatur und Laienbildung, (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1984), pp.504-531; Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, De Secretis Mulierum, Helen Rodnite Lemay (trans.), Womens Secrets: a Translation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus De Secretis Mulierum with Commentaries, (New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp.135-41 41 Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, De Secretis Mulierum, Lemay (trans.), pp.71-2 42 Ibid., p.92 43 Ibid., pp.64-5 44 Ibid., p.96

16

generate cats in his womb, which must then be expelled by vomiting45).

Various recipes appear in medieval gynaecological handbooks suggesting a somewhat experimental tradition of trying to manipulate aspects of female sexuality and motherhood through the application of drugs and herbal concoctions. Pseudo-Alberts De Secretis Mulierum advises the following method to test if a woman is evil or otherwise before engaging in coitus: take a small bird which is called quivering tail and dry it into powder or burn it and place this dust in a crucible, if any evil woman is around she will bark like a dog.46 But Pseudo-Alberts treatise is a primarily theoretical text, and this is only one recipe in the midst of a philosophical treatise.

On the other hand, there were a number of practical gynaecological recipe-books (known as pessaries) in circulation in medieval Europe. Amongst such literature, prime place must be given to the Pessaria written probably in the 5th or 6th century by a certain Muscio (adapting and expanding an ancient treatise by Soranus), the Gynaecia supposedly penned by Cleopatra, and the De Curis Mulierum of the so-called Trotula corpus.47 Such literature was extremely popular; the De Curis Mulierum, for example, survives in an astounding 122 Latin manuscripts, and 58 vernacular translations and variants.48 These texts contain details of recipes for abortion drugs, contraceptives, libidinal stimulants and drugs intended to induce permanent infertility. The vast majority of these recipes are pharmacologically effective according to tests performed by modern scientists.49
45 Ibid., p.66 46 Ibid. 47 See Green, Medieval Gynecological Literature: A Handlist, pp.21, 32, 8-9; for a breakdown of the complex history of the Trotula corpus, see Green, The Development of the Trotula, Revue dHistoire des Textes, Vol.26, (1996), pp.119-203 [also reprinted in Womens Healthcare in the Medieval West]; for details of the manuscripts of the Latin Trotula corpus, see Green, A Handlist of the Latin and Vernacular Manuscripts of the So-Called Trotula Texts. Part 1: the Latin Manuscripts, Scriptorium, Vol.50 (1996), pp.137-75. Green has also edited and translated what she calls the standardised Trotula corpus: Green, The Trotula: a Medieval Compendium of Womens Medicine, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). 48 Green, Medieval Gynecological Literature: A Handlist, in Green, Womens Healthcare in the Medieval West: Texts and Contexts, (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 2000), p.35 49 John M. Riddle, Contraception and Early Abortion in the Middle Ages, in Vern L. Bullough & James A. Brundage (eds.), Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), pp.261-277; John M. Riddle, Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance, (Cambridge, Massachusetts:

17

Texts like these detailed and explicit accounts of male and female reproduction were often the cause of worry for the churchman. What would happen if the knowledge of these womens secrets were to fall into the wrong hands? The French vernacular translation of the De Secretis Mulierum inserts a fictional papal decretal forbidding anyone to show the work to women and children on pain of excommunication.50 Various warnings to similar effect are given in the prefaces to several German translations of the same text. These advise against showing such literature to imprudent people, who might use the knowledge to slander innocent women.51 The subtle misogyny of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus De Secretis Mulierum did after all have a strong influence on the ideologies that underpinned the witch-hunting handbook, the Malleus Malleficarum.52 The knowledge that menstruating women poison animals, taint mirrors and infect little children and men who have intercourse with them with leprosy and cancer could be misused if placed in the wrong hands.53 More importantly, medicinal recipes for abortive drugs and drugs designed to induce permanent sterility were of grave concern.54

Given the secrecy surrounding this genre of text, and the illustrations of naked women in the Voynich Manuscript, combined with herbal, pharmaceutical and astrological information, all of which play a major part in the literature on womens secrets, it seems likely that our text forms a part of this genre. This theory explains away one of the main problems our manuscript presents the reason for encipherment. As discussed above, the usual 'Galileo Effect' argument leaves much to be desired. The wish to conceal such a text from the eyes of those who would abuse its knowledge makes far more sense than any fear of church repression. It does not matter if someone knows (from
Harvard University Press, 1992), pp.135-144 50 Margaret Schleissner, A Fifteenth-Century Physicians Attitude Toward Sexuality: Dr. Johann Hartliebs Secreta Mulierum Translation, in Joyce E. Salisbury (ed.), Sex in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1991), p.113 51 Ibid. 52 See Lemays introduction to her translation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, pp.49-58 53 Schleissner, p.112 54 Ibid., p.115

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the illustrations) that the text is about plants, naked women and astrology, so long as they cannot read and make use of the recipes contained therein.

Amongst the medieval intellectual traditions of herbology, astrology and gynaecology, which have been treated here only briefly, there is no single person better placed to have been the author of the Voynich Manuscript than Dr. Johann Hartlieb, a man who appears at exactly the right time and place, with exactly the right intellectual background, and whom we know to have been actively engaged in the propagation of womens secrets and in suppressing such dangerous knowledge by use of secret alphabets. Hartlieb was born c.1400 in Wrrtemburg, studied medicine in Padua, and served as the court physician to the Dukes of Bavaria-Munich from 1440 onwards.55 His works include:
! ! ! !

Kruterbuch a herbal56 Chiromantie a treatise on chiromancy (palm-reading)57 Namenmantik a treatise on onomancy (divining by assigning numerical values to letters)58 das Mondwahrsagebuch (the Moon-Fortune Book), a.k.a. De mansionibus (On the [lunar] Mansions) a book on astrology59

Geomantie a treatise on geomancy (divining by analysing patterns in a handful of soil thrown to the ground)60

Kunst der Gedchtn (the Art of Memory) a book on ars memorativa, the medieval mnemonic science61

55 Schleissner, p.111 56 Frank Frbeth, Johannes Hartlieb: Untersuchungen zu Leben und Werk, (Tbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1992), pp.61-2; Franz Speta (ed.), Das Kruterbuch des Johannes Hartlieb, (Graz: Akademische Druck, 1980) 57 Frbeth, pp.72-5; Ernst Weil: Die Kunst Chiromantia des Dr. Hartlieb, (Munich, Verlag der Mnchner Drucke, 1923) 58 Frbeth, pp.57-60; Wolfram Schmitt, Hans Hartliebs mantische Schriften und seine Beeinflussung durch Nikolaus von Kues, (Heidelberg: Dissertation, 1962) 59 Frbeth, pp.49-57; Bodo Weidemann (ed.), Kunst der Gedchtn und De Mansionibus, zwei frhe Traktate des Johannes Hartlieb (Berlin: Dissertation, 1964 ) 60 Frbeth, pp.60-1; this text is unedited. Frbeth notes 3 MSS. 61 Frbeth, p.44-9; Weidemann (ed.), see footnote 60.

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Das Buch aller verbotenen Kunst (the Book of the Most Forbidden Arts) a treatise condemning necromancy62

Bderbuch (the Bathing Book) a treatise on balneology (medicinal bathing)63 Practica Medicinae (the Practice of Medicine) a medical guidebook in Latin64; and Secreta Mulierum (the Secrets of Women) a gynaecological compendium65

Of these texts, the one of greatest interests for our purposes is Hartliebs gynaecological work. Written in German (despite the Latin title), the Secreta Mulierum (The Secrets of Women), was a composite source, combining elements from Muscio, Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, the 'Trotula corpus', Gilbertus Anglicus, Avicenna, Rhazes and more.66 It was chiefly concerned with transferring knowledge available only in Latin to a German lay audience (specifically, married couples).67 Although Hartlieb claims to have been writing for this audience, he in fact addresses Siegmund, his lord and a bachelor.68 Siegmund was a known womaniser, having had at least three illegitimate children to a bourgeois mistress.69 This naturally concerned Hartlieb, himself a married man of great faith.

Hartliebs study of astrology and various other occult sciences tread the line between curiosity and

62 Frbeth, pp.75-7; Dora Ulm (ed.), Johann Hartliebs Buch aller verbotenen Kunst, (Halle: Niemeyer, 1914). Schleissner (p.112) suggested that, since this Buch aller verbotenen Kunst condemns necromancy, the other occult works attributed to Hartlieb must be spurious. I find this logic questionable. 63 Frbeth, pp.79-81; this text is unedited. Frbeth notes 4 MSS., one of which is fragmentary, and also a Latin vorlage: Felix Hemmerlis Tractatus de balneis. This text was apparently written in conjunction with one Jordan Tmlinger. 64 Frbeth, p.82; this text is unedited. Frbeth notes 1 MS. 65 Frbeth, pp.78-9, 198-205; Kristian Bosselman-Cyran (ed.), Secreta Mulierum mit Glosse in der deutschen Bearbeitung von Johann Hartlieb, (Pattensen: Wallm, 1985); 66 Green, Medieval Gynecological Literature: a Handlist, p.17; Green, A Handlist of Latin and Vernacular Manuscripts of the So-Called Trotula Texts. Part II: the Vernacular Translations and Latin Re-Workings, Scriptorium, Vol.51, No.1 (1997), pp.95-7 67 Schleissner, p.114 68 Ibid. 69 Schleissner, footnote 14, p.120

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the occult. Although his Buch aller verbotenen Kunst is ostensibly anti-magic, it has been suggested that, by giving detailed descriptions of magical practises, he was encouraging their use, rather than deterring them.70 Thus, he made sure that his readers were aware that his Secreta Mulierum was medical, not magical: Alles, das darin stet, das ist kain czawbrey vnd geet alles czw mit kreyttern, salben, wurtzen, greyffen [Nothing contained herein is magic, rather everything is effected through herbs, salves, plants and creams].71

Hartliebs work covers a range of topics which would be inappropriate for the public eye: genitalia, copulation, reproduction, menstruation, virginity, sterility, abortion and contraceptives. He was reticent to translate some of these materials from the Latin; in the section on abortion, he wrote:
Ich pesorg, solt die kunst aufkummen, so wurden etlich frauen und maid die treyben so ez nit not wer, und mocht vil vbels darau kummen. Darvmb will ich es nit zu teutsch machen. Will aber ewr furstlich gnad das ye haben, so pin ich der ewr vnd han euch versprochen, das puch zu teutschen. So will ich es recht vnd wol teutschen vnd will das ton auf ewr sel, leyb, er vnd gut, vnd was vbels dauon geschech, da will ich nit tail an haben In dem namen Jesu Christi amen. [I fear, should the technique come into use, some women and girls would practice it when it was not necessary and much evil would result. Therefore, I do not wish to translate it into German. But if your noble grace wishes to have it anyway, then I am yours and I have promised to translate this book into German. And so I will translate it accurately and will do so upon your soul, body, honour and property, and whatever evil results I will have no part in, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen].72

The chapter of the Buch Trotula73 on abortion drugs and contraceptives subject was so dangerous that Hartlieb felt the need to have it suppressed:
Aller gnadigster furst Jch pitt dein gnad dz du ditz capittl verhaltest oder aber mit verporgn puchstabn der ich ewm furstlichn gnadn vil gebn hab schreybn lasst wan soltn die stugk kumen vntter leychtfertig lewt so wurd gro sund dauon geschechn das ich euch vnd mir nit gunnen wolt. [Most gracious lord, I beg your grace to suppress this chapter or else to have it written in secret letters with which I have provided your noble grace [!], for should this passage come into the hands of imprudent people, grave sins would result for which I would not wish you

70

Thomas Kramer, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im spten Mittlealter (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1990), p.129 71 Schleissner, p.116 72 Schleissner, p.115 73 Schleissner (p.115) says Chapter 19 of the Buch Trotula. Green says that Hartlieb used the standardised ensemble (i.e. one of a few versions in which the Trotula corpus was circulated), which exists in 26 chapters. Presumably, it is chapter 19 of this work which Schleissner is reffering to.

21

or me to bear responsibility].74

This historical circumstance fits all the known details of the Voynich Manuscript. Not only was Hartlieb a man with a perfect ideological background, having studied herbology, astrology, and medicine (and even something as obscure as balneology, which is in the Voynich illustrations!), he also falls in exactly the right time and place for the creation of our text, and, most importantly, he is even known to have used secret letters to hide potentially dangerous womens secrets.

If this theory proves to be correct, then the implications for the study of the Voynich Manuscript are immense. Firstly, it would suggest that the language underlying our manuscript is German, and this gives a convincing reason as to why twentieth-century cryptologists have failed, since they were trying to decipher the Voynich text into Latin or English. Secondly, Hartliebs treatise on mnemonics, the Kunst der Gedchtn, might possibly yield clues to his method of encipherment. Third, it would suggest that the Voynich Manuscript could be a translation of an already-known gynaecological text, or a new text with borrowings from other texts, and hence decipherment may be a relatively simple process of figuring out which part of the Trotula corpus is missing in Hartliebs Secreta Mulierum. The present author shall be exploring these possibilities as soon as time permits.

If the present theory turns out to be wrong, then this paper will simply form another in a long line of attempts to figure out exactly what the Voynich Manuscript is all about. If this is the case, then the basic tenets of this essay should be borne in mind: that the author of the Voynich Manuscript was a person who must have had a strong background in cryptology and the intellectual genres suggested by the illustrations. The best way to understand the Voynich Manuscript, even if we cannot read it, is to understand these intellectual foundations on which it was built, and only then can we try to
74

Schleissner, p.115

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understand the greatest mystery of all what its author was thinking.

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