Hypothesis B

I offer a second, related, hypothesis – hypothesis B, the Benedictine option. It is less plausible than the first but is not out of the question. I consider it subsidiary to the Cusean Ladin Hypothesis proper.

This alternative hypothesis has no need for Nicholas of Cusa, except perhaps indirectly as a catalyst. Instead, the Voynich manuscript is the work of the Benedictine sisters who had spiritual dominion over much of the Ladin population, including half of Val Badia.

By my hypothesis, the work, first and foremost, concerns the Ladin herbal tradition. The quest is to explain the strange (and quite developed) presentation of that tradition. Who might have done this? It concerns a rustic herbal tradition but we can be sure that it is not by a rustic herbalist from the mountain valleys. So who in that landscape could account for the cosmology, the language, the script, all the elements beyond the rustic herbal tradition?

Hypothesis A answers Nicholas of Cusa. He was bishop over the Ladin of that region for a prolonged period.

But also in that same landscape – with even longer acquaintance with the Ladin – are the Benedictine nuns of Sonnenberg castle (Castle Badia Sonnenberg). Might not they be a candidate for the intellectual development of Ladin herbalism? Hypothesis B.

That is: the Voynich manuscript is a Benedictine account of the Ladin tradition.

In this variant hypothesis, the work is thus in the tradition of Hildegard of Bingen and the Benedictine monastic herbal tradition, with its distinctive natural philosophy, cosmology and medicine – with this applied to, or married to, fused to, informing, the native herb tradition of the local region, the herbalism of the Ladin.

In such a scenario, the language and the invented script might be explained in the Benedictine tradition: after all, Hildergard, the great luminary of the Benedictine sisters, is the prototypal case of a language and script being created in the Middle Ages.

The work, then, would be more visionary in nature than rational and scientific (as it would be in Hypothesis A.)

The work would also, then, be by women. Where in the Ladin landscape do we find educated, literate women? The nuns of Sonnenberg.

The historical context is important. The Benedictine nuns were a centuries-old institution in the region and occupied Sonnenberg castle. The nuns themselves came from the leading local families. Their languages were German and Ladin. The application of the Benedictine rule was loose, though, which better allowed the nuns to serve functions in the community.

This state of affairs was challenged by the arrival of the reformer Nicholas of Cusa, who, as the new bishop, upset long standing arrangements and imposed the strict rule. The nuns – local nobility – were suddenly cloistered. They protested that the strict rule had never been applied at Sonnenberg in its entire history. It was a covent for noble women, not just any nuns. (Cusanus gave them thirty days to disconnect from their boyfriends!) Thus the famous rivalry between Cusanus and his nemesis, the abbess, Verena von Stuben.

From which side of that dispute does the Voynich ms. come? Who has assisted in making a written, developed account of the Ladin tradition? Cusanus, the outsider, or the Benedictine nuns? Hypothesis A supposes that Cusanus came to know the local Ladin tradition and provided a commentary thereupon. In Hypothesis B we can assume that the nuns knew the local traditions first hand, and had known them for centuries. We can conjecture that there was some meshing between the (substantial) Benedictine tradition of herbalism (herb cultivation) and the local herb gathering tradition.

In view of this question, for instance, it might be significant that the Voynich map (which I take to be of that region, Dolomite Ladinia) features conspicuous Ghiberline architectural markings, including long boundaries with the tell-tale swallowtail merlons. Does this announce a political affiliation? The Benedictine sisters appealed to Duke Sigismund against Cusanus – it was essentially a good old Papacy vs. Hapsburgs dispute. There is nothing even slightly papal in the Voynich ms. On that count, it seems a thoroughly (or even explicitly) Ghiberline document. That would put it in the camp of the nuns versus Cardinal Cusanus.

It is an attractive alternative. Prima facie the involvement of the local Benedictine nuns is more likely than the involvement of Nicholas. It is hard to associate Cusanus with a rustic herbal. The folkish nature of the manuscript is much more in keeping with the Benedictine nuns.

But the sophistication of the cosmology, and the language, the Llullian Art (?), Graeco-Islamic influence, and many other features of the work seem more within the reach of someone like Nicholas of Cusa than someone like Verena von Stuben and her nuns.

R. B.