Having previously described Cheshire as “a University of Bristol academic”, the university is taking pains to distance itself from him. Now the university has deleted its article about the research, saying concerns had been raised “about the validity of this research from academics in the fields of linguistics and medieval studies”. This is just more aspirational, circular, self-fulfilling nonsense,” tweeted Dr Lisa Fagin Davis, executive director of the Medieval Academy of America, in one of the kinder assessments from its critics.

He described his findings as “one of the most important developments to date in Romance linguistics”.Ĭheshire’s paper was peer-reviewed and published in the established journal Romance Studies, but not every expert in the field of medieval literature was convinced. Although the meaning of the volume, held at Yale University, had eluded experts for more than a century, the university said Cheshire had solved the puzzle in just two weeks “using a combination of lateral thinking and ingenuity”.Ĭheshire argued Voynich was a therapeutic reference book composed by nuns for Maria of Castile, queen of Aragon, and the sole surviving text written in a lost language called “proto-Romance”.

Voynich manuscript decoded 2020