Is the VM an autograph or copy?

[geoffreycaveney]

So to get to the point, I expect that in this scenario, the few trusted scribes and clerks who were given the task of performing the actual physical writing of the text of the secret cipher manuscript in the secret script would have been entrusted with the secrets. Perhaps different sets of secrets for the "Hand 1" scribe writing in "Language A", the "Hand 2" scribe writing in "Language B", etc.

Agreed, this could been one of  the reasons to have more hands doing it. But still all of them should have been trained to the system, possibly taking notes and learning from examples. If any one should have seen any potential heresy or treason material was a potential risk anyway. Loyalty has limits.

This is a very relevant point for my own theory, since the text I have read and interpreted clearly includes treasonous material against the king of England, written or commissioned to be written by an English duke. I would think that at least one "master scribe" must have known the entire cipher system, and been entrusted with such secrets. Such a person must have been very loyal to the duke indeed; perhaps that person had their own grievances against the king as well, who knows? But I think it is possible that the other scribes ("Hands") may only have been taught how to write the characters and script, and they could have been assigned the text to be written by the duke or by the master scribe, without having been taught the cipher system or the meaning or even necessarily the underlying language that the cipher text represented. (After all, we do the same thing today when we write in Voynichese characters!) 

Geoffrey