05-05-2021, 12:24 AM
(04-05-2021, 11:40 PM)-JKP- wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have been gathering evidence that the VMS creator[s] have some formal training. I can see that they have (although not quite professional level) but finding evidence to prove it is a whole other issue.
It is my guess that the illustrator is fairly young (not a child, but not middle-aged or older). I am not 100% certain but I'm leaning in that direction... maybe late teens?
We don't know if the scribe and the illustrator are the same person. We also don't know if the "cipher" designer and the scribes are the same person/people (I believe there are at least two scribes and possibly three, and LFD has potentially identified more than that).
If I had to wager (I prefer not to wager but if I had to), I would guess that the "cipher" designer is probably one of the scribes (maybe scribe 1?). I'm not prepared to wager whether the illustrator is also a scribe. I really don't know and there aren't many clues as to whether this is so. There's a certain integration that suggests the illustrator MIGHT be one of the scribes but I am hesitant to suggest it.
OK, I will just put this out there since I have literally nothing to lose...
My theory/hypothesis is that the cipher designer and Hand 1 is Edward, 2nd Duke of York (1373-1415), also Lieutenant of the Duchy of Aquitaine (in Bordeaux?) from July 1401 to May 1403. I further hypothesise that Hand 2, and a principal illustrator of the MS, is Constance of York, Edward's younger sister (1375-1416), and thus age 29-31 at the time of my proposed date of the initial composition of the VMS (1404-1406, when Glyndwr of Wales was still powerful enough to have been an inspiration for the illustration on folio page f73r ).
Geoffrey