I'm still working on it, and I think I have a viable idea - not a solution yet, but one that could explain many of the peculiar features of the VMS.
One interesting consequence: it gives an explanation for the differences between sections and Currier A/B.
Suppose the underlying text is MHD in a Bavarian dialect. Writing in this period was still strongly phonetic. If two / five scribes spoke even slightly different dialects, the cipher output would diverge noticeably — same system, different surface profile.
Different languages would be going too far; that has already been tested and dismissed. But slightly to more strongly differing dialects would fit a lot of what we see. Currier A and B might then correspond to two scribes with very similar dialects, and Balneo to a more distinctly different one.
That would sit comfortably within the Middle High German era — Bavaria at the time was a patchwork of subtly and not-so-subtly different dialects.
Just an idea...
One interesting consequence: it gives an explanation for the differences between sections and Currier A/B.
Suppose the underlying text is MHD in a Bavarian dialect. Writing in this period was still strongly phonetic. If two / five scribes spoke even slightly different dialects, the cipher output would diverge noticeably — same system, different surface profile.
Different languages would be going too far; that has already been tested and dismissed. But slightly to more strongly differing dialects would fit a lot of what we see. Currier A and B might then correspond to two scribes with very similar dialects, and Balneo to a more distinctly different one.
That would sit comfortably within the Middle High German era — Bavaria at the time was a patchwork of subtly and not-so-subtly different dialects.
Just an idea...