New research suggests that the pages of the Voynich manuscript, a medieval text filled with indecipherable script and illustrations, may have been read in the wrong order for centuries. An article published in the peer-reviewed journal Digital Medievalist by Colin Layfield and Lisa Fagin Davis proposes that the manuscript's folded sheets were originally stacked as "singulions" but were mis-bound into a more typical arrangement sometime in the mid to late 15th century.
This finding, while not immediately decoding the text known as "Voynichese," could significantly change understanding of the manuscript's function. Lisa Fagin Davis, an expert on medieval handwriting, suggests the evidence points to a "more communal object," possibly a series of booklets used to pass down information, rather than the work of a single author.
Layfield and Davis used a numerical analysis tool to compare text blocks, finding high coherence between distant pages, which supports the mis-binding hypothesis. Visual clues, such as illustrations of streams or pipes that do not align across pages in the current binding, also suggest a different original order. Davis noted that the only other medieval manuscripts known to be preserved in a singulion arrangement are Qurans from North Africa, which were likely intended as small instructional booklets.
The manuscript, held at Yale University, has been carbon-dated to between 1404 and 1438, ruling out earlier theories of authorship by figures like Roger Bacon or Leonardo da Vinci. Davis's hypothesis is further supported by paleographical analysis, which indicates the manuscript was written by up to five different scribes. Some drawings resemble the female reproductive system, herbal lore, and astrology, leading Davis to suggest it could be "a book of women's folk knowledge that's being preserved," though this cannot yet be proven.