An illustrated book written by an anonymous author, in an unidentified alphabet and in an incomprehensible language. When historians came across the Voynich manuscript, it was all good things. Written in the 15th century, at the end of the Middle Ages, the text passed through several hands until it ended up in those of Wilfried M. Voynich, a merchant who acquired it in 1912.
Disconcerting yet fascinating, the document is covered in illustrations of stars and planets, plants, zodiac symbols, naked women, and blue and green fluids. But the text itself, believed to be the work of five different scribes, is encrypted and not yet understood. At least completely.
Researchers Keagan Brewer and Michelle L. Lewis have been the latest to try to discover the secrets hidden in the manuscript. As explained in an article published in the journal Social History of Medicine, parts of the book are about sex and the largest diagram represents both sex and conception.
Carbon dating determined that the skins used to make the parchment were from animals that died between 1404 and 1438. However, its first known owner for certain was an associate of the Holy Roman Empire. Emperor Rudolf II, who lived from 1552 to 1612, which leaves a gap of more than a century.
Certain illustrations such as the symbols of the zodiac, the design of a crown and a particular shape of the castle wall called the swallowtail merlon indicate that the manuscript was produced in the cultural areas of southern Germany or northern Italy.
Almost every page contains botanical and scientific drawings, many of them full-page, provincial but lively in character, in wash ink in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue and red. One section contains illustrations of naked women holding objects adjacent to or oriented toward their genitals.
As Brewer and Lewis point out, these would not belong to an exclusively herbal or astronomical manuscript. “To make sense of these images, we investigated the culture of late medieval gynecology and sexology, which doctors of the time often referred to as ‘women's secrets,’” they write.
They first analyzed the Bavarian doctor Johannes Hartlieb (who lived around 1410-1468) who would have lived at the time and place where the Voynich manuscript was made. He wrote about plants, women, magic, astronomy and baths. He also recommended the use of "secret letters" (such as a cipher, a secret alphabet, or the like) to conceal prescriptions and medical procedures that could lead to contraception, abortion, or sterility.
Although his secret alphabet has not survived, analysis of his work has helped to understand the attitudes that would have inspired the use of encryption at that time. Hartlieb, for example, had a strong fear that "women's secrets" would become widely known. He worried that his writings might facilitate extramarital sexual relations and that God would condemn him if this happened.
In her unencrypted writings, she refuses or hesitates to write about certain topics, such as postpartum vaginal ointments, women's sexual pleasure, "correct" coital positions for conception, libido-altering diets, or information about poisonous plants, hallucinogenic, contraceptive or abortifacient.
Writing for male aristocrats in vernacular Bavarian (rather than academic Latin), Johannes Hartlieb - who condemned lust, promiscuity and prostitution - suggested that such knowledge should be restricted to sex workers, commoners, children and, in some cases, to the women themselves, who were becoming increasingly literate.
“If attitudes like promiscuity were widespread then, was censorship of women's secrets also widespread? The short answer is yes,” says Keagan Brewer.
During his research he has managed to decode several figures from this period of the Middle Ages (although none correspond to the Voynich manuscript). The longest is a 21-line code from northern Italy that hid a recipe with gynecological uses, including abortion.
“We also find many examples of authors who censor themselves or of readers who delete or destroy information in gynecological and/or sexological texts. “Censors often only hid a few words, usually genital terms or plant names in recipes, but sometimes they deleted entire pages or chapters,” he adds.
One Bavarian manuscript, for example, included recipes for invisibility and magical spells to sexually coerce women, after which two entire pages were removed. The censor wrote that this deletion was made "not without reason."
“By analyzing the Voynich illustrations through this lens, we propose that the Rosettes, the largest and most elaborate illustration in the manuscript, represent a late medieval understanding of sex and conception,” the specialists say in their article.
In the late medieval period, dominated by patriarchal culture, it was believed that the uterus had seven chambers and the vagina had two openings (one external and one internal). “We believe that the nine large circles of the Rosettes represent them, with the central circle marking the outer opening and the upper left circle showing the inner opening,” they say.
The eight outer circles have smooth edges as they represent the internal anatomy, while the center circle has a shaped edge as it represents the external anatomy. Additionally, Abu Bakr Al-Rāzī, a Persian doctor who influenced European medicine in the late Middle Ages, wrote that there were five small veins in the vaginas of virgins. In the illustrations they appear running from the upper left circle towards the center.
Doctors of that time also believed that a male and a female component were necessary for conception, and both were called "sperm." These are shown in yellow (male) and blue (female). It was thought that women derived pleasure from the movement of the two sperm in the uterus, which was represented through lines and patterns.
The uterus was also thought to have two horns or spikes, which can be seen in the upper right and lower right circles. Castles and city walls may also represent a play on the German term schloss, which had meanings including "castle", "lock", "female genitals" and "female pelvis", specialists say.
The two suns at the top left and bottom right probably reflect Aristotle's belief that the sun provides natural heat to the embryo during its early development. “Although many features of the illustration remain to be deciphered, our proposal deserves close examination. Perhaps with enough clues we can finally decode this elusive text,” they conclude.
