Create a book that was none, from which no one could learn anything, and that was inteded as joke. Someone else exclaimed "No, they would not have done that" but as I sat there and looked at the pictures I found myself thinking that doing a thing like that was precisely what some of them would have found exceedingly hilarious, and funny. A worldbook no one could read about a non-existing world. Matters got heated, after someone suggested that someone "obviously" sat down and created a book that looks like a medieval cosmology, but really describes nothing and actually parodies them. I think that as more medieval manuscripts get digitized, we stand a chance of deciphering it.ĭecades ago, at a time when I was working intensely with both handwritten and early printed texts of late middle age and pre-modern cultures, I stumbled upon a similar discussion (it was the first time I heard about the manuscript in question, so I kept quiet and just read. the "gate" characters, the things that look like the top of an Apple command key) can be found in other, similar manuscripts. All the bathing ladies drawings likewise look appropriately like period drawings of women in mineral springs, just reproduced by someone not particularly good at drawing figures.Ī lot of the details have been obscured by a third-party artist who came along at a later date and tried to "fix" fading pigments by slathing on heavy green and brown, which is another reason the drawings are so weird and possibly also why all the water is green instead of blue.Īlmost all the visual elements, including even some of the text elements (e.g. Most likely the plants are copies (of copies of copies and so-forth) of pressed specimens, which look weird enough in first-generation drawings, which is why they seem so alien. It's an herbal and women's health manual written in some kind of obscure shorthand, the "Rosetta stone" for which has either been lost to the ages or hasn't been unearthed yet. The family compensates said monastery for keeping this guy there, he leaves the monks alone if they allow him to stay in his own world - so they do. Either way, it makes sense to whomever wrote it. Perhaps he is illiterate and is writing true jibberish. Perhaps he can read and write and invented his own "language" or "code". He keeps himself busy inside his own head and writes these ramblings using the monastary's writing supplies. A rival couldn't accuse a family member of murdering him for some sort of gain. Having him away at a monastery is considered respectable and he can be physically accounted for, should the need arise. If he was high status enough, the family may have known they couldn't have him disappear entirely. Many men that weren't the first born went into careers in the church. This is the Middle Ages illegitimate children, extra daughters, etc were often sent (or "given") to religious orders. A severely mentally ill male of high status gets placed in a monastery, to hide him and his condition. This might sound kind of out there, but perhaps it's the ramblings of a mentally ill man.
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