Re: what we know about the VMS' creation time

["Rafal T. Prinke" <rafalp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Rene Zandbergen wrote:

> Evans' source for Tepenec and Pontanus was Balbin, who wrote in Latin,
> so the Latinised forms of the names are understandable. Now what bothers
> me is that Balbin was a good (close?) friend of Marci. If Pontanus
> and/or Tepenec were known to have owned the Voynich MS, wouldn't
> Balbin have told Marci?

But we do not know if he (Balbin) knew about the VMS. The images
of Balbin's manuscript on great Bohemian writers (I don't remember
the title right now) is available on the Web site of the National
Library in Prague - but unfortunately the resolution makes it 
practically illegible.

Rudolf may have got the VMS from practically anyone who visited
Prague so any guesses are unfounded (just as it was with Dee).
As it is highly probable that Sinapius owned it for some time
and that he received it from Pontanus (whose one other MS he had),
and as Evans says they were on friendly terms (I have not read
his book as there seems to be no copy in Poland), perhaps
the correspondence of Pontanus survives somewhere? Perhaps
he wrote to someone in Europe about it? Anyway, he may now
be counted among those who (most probably) saw the VMS.

> > Interesting - IIRC in English it is "carrying coal to Manchester"
> 
> Coal yes, but I think I heard it was Newcastle.

Oops... of course :-)

> The closest equivalent in Dutch
> is "koeterwaals" (German: "Kauderwelsch"). No idea what that
> refers to, actually.

Incredible! I have always wondered what it mean in the poem
of a 19th c. folk poet from the Bohemian Sudeten (and a very
distant relative of mine):

   Und Böhmen ist mein Vaterland
   Ob zwar ich bömisch nichts verstand.
   Ich verstand als Kind die deutsche Sprache nicht,
   Weil man hier deutsch kauderwällisch spricht.

Could this refer to the Walonian dialect of treasure seekers
(and their books!) which was discussed some time ago?

Best regards,

Rafal