Once again the Voynich manuscript

This is one of the most novel theories on the Voynich manuscript (Beinecke MS408; early 15th c.) that I've ever encountered, and there are many.

The Voynich Manuscript, Dr Johannes Hartlieb and the Encipherment of Women’s Secrets, by Keagan Brewer and Michelle L Lewis, Social History of Medicine, hkad099 (22 March 2024)

https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkad099

Keywords:  Voynich manuscript, Dr Johannes Hartlieb, women’s secrets, sex, gynaecology

Summary

The Voynich manuscript is a famous European enciphered manuscript of the early fifteenth century featuring herbal, pharmaceutical, astrological and anatomical illustrations, including hundreds of naked women. Some hold objects adjacent to or unambiguously pointed towards their genitalia. This paper therefore investigates the culture of self-censorship, erasure and encipherment of women’s secrets, with a focus on Dr Johannes Hartlieb (c. 1410–68). Hartlieb had enduring apprehensions about the propagation of women’s secrets in vernacular Bavarian, which culminated in a call for ‘secret letters’ to hide recipes for abortifacients and contraceptives. Other cases of encipherment relating to sexual intercourse and genitalia will be described. On the basis of this evidence, we propose that the Rosettes, the largest and most complex illustration in the Voynich manuscript, represents coitus and conception. This hypothesis explains many of the illustration’s features and establishes a variety of future research possibilities.

Yet another theory on the fabled Voynich MS, but one that to me makes a lot of sense.

Selected readings

• "Voynich and midfix" (7/3/04)
• "Voynich code cracked?" (5/16/19)
• "The indecipherability of the Voynich manuscript" (9/11/19)
• "The Voynich Manuscript in the undergraduate curriculum" (10/10/19)
• "ChatGPT: Theme and Variations" (2/21/23) — CHAT 2
• "Latin, Hebrew … proto-Romance? New theory on Voynich manuscript:  Researcher claims to have solved mystery of 15th-century text but others are sceptical", Esther Addley, The Guardian (5/15/19)

[Thanks to Hiroshi Kumamoto]