The Friar and the Cipher: Roger Bacon and the Unsolved Mystery of the Most Unusual Manuscript in the World

by Lawrence Goldstone, Nancy Goldstone

The Voynich Manuscript, a mysterious tome discovered in 1912 by the English book dealer Wilfrid Michael Voynich, has puzzled scholars for a century. A small six inches by nine inches, but over two hundred pages long, with odd illustrations of plants, astrological diagrams, and naked women, it is written in so indecipherable a language and contains so complicated a code that mathematicians, book collectors, linguists, and historians alike have yet to solve the mysteries contained within.However, in The Friar and the Cipher, the acclaimed bibliophiles and historians Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone describe, in fascinating detail, the theory that Roger Bacon, the noted thirteenth-century, pre-Copernican astronomer, was its author and that the perplexing alphabet was written in his hand. Along the way, they explain the many proposed solutions that scholars have put forth and the myriad attempts at labeling the manuscript’s content, from Latin or Greek shorthand to Arabic numerals to ancient Ukrainian to a recipe for the elixir of life to good old-fashioned gibberish.As we journey across centuries, languages, and countries, we meet a cast of impassioned characters and case-crackers, including, of course, Bacon, whose own personal scientific contributions, Voynich author or not, were literally and figuratively astronomical.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Books About Books, Science, Mystery, Biography, History Of Science

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Lawrence Goldstone is the author of fourteen books of both fiction and non-fiction. Six of those books were co-authored with his wife, Nancy, but they now write separately to save what is left of their dishes.
Goldstone's articles, reviews, and opinion pieces have appeared in, among other publications, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Hartford Courant, and Berkshire Eagle. He has also written for a number of magazines that have gone bust, although he denies any cause and effect.
His first novel, Rights, won a New American Writing Award but he now cringes at its awkward prose. (Anatomy of Deception and The Astronomer are much better.)
Despite a seemingly incurable tendency to say what's on his mind (thus mortifying Nancy), Goldstone has been widely interviewed on both radio and television, with appearances on, among others, "Fresh Air" (NPR), "To the Best of Our Knowledge" (NPR), "The Faith Middleton Show" (NPR), "Tavis Smiley" (PBS), and Leonard Lopate (WNYC). His work has also been profiled in The New York Times, The Toronto Star, numerous regional newspapers, Salon, and Slate.
Goldstone holds a PhD in American Constitutional Studies from the New School. His friends thus call him DrG, although he can barely touch the rim. (Sigh. Can't make a layup anymore either.) He and his beloved bride founded and ran an innovative series of parent-child book groups, which they documented in Deconstructing Penguins. He has also been a teacher, lecturer, senior member of a Wall Street trading firm, taxi driver, actor, quiz show contestant, and policy analyst at the Hudson Institute.
He is a unerring stock picker. Everything he buys instantly goes down.

Reviews

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is probably the most difficult book to review I've done in years.

I truly want to give it 5 stars. BUT and this BUT is HUGE.

The but is this. The title is a mere fraction of the innards. Every morsel about that manuscript was luscious. And I adored the photo representations.

But honestly, this book is equal to a 10 star philosophy, logic, structural world order, mindset of? Well, how long ago did history start?

Yes, they bite off, not a bite, but an entire banquet table that reaches from Earth to Mars. Far more than the Roger Bacon century piece posit.

All the context of the Greeks, Roman, Christian, Arabic etc. etc. etc. How the 11th through the 16th century changed worldview and the entire human mindset mode in many locations. The entire teeter-totter of moral reason/ human knowledge/logic parsed in 1000 personality and influences progressions over 300 to 400 years.

So the reading of the book is convoluted and yet masterful within specific minutia. And yet the title is merely a Roger Bacon insert.

It's an excellent read for giving clearer path knowledge to where/who/how. I learned much of the two major Arabic genius inputs etc. But this is not for the faint of heart to approach in the scope of history needed to understand all these philosophies and written or oral arguments.

I'm glad I read it. And in the form I did. Because flipping back and forth was essential. So many languages, so many brilliant men. And yes, they all were. Male.

A better approach to this and somewhat different to understand too (better ordered)to where Western Civ. and other huge banks of knowledge and practice to empirical truths or to practical applications as history displays? You would need 6 or 7 volumes for this nugget subject alone (philosophy or scientific process of evidence etc.). So if you find this too hard to follow, I would strongly suggest Ben Shapiro's The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great. That basically is dealing with the same issues here- that entity evolved comes almost entirely from just two fonts. This book by Goldstone will be far more difficult to convey for enjoyable understanding if you have little knowledge of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates specifically. Or do not hold a good grasp of Islam or Christian core progressions over time. European and Middle Eastern history buffs will get more out of this too, by far.

But if you are only interested in Roger Bacon and the title document- you will be vastly disappointed. It's about cipher but far more about how "proof think" evolved.

[Peggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was kind of weird, because I was all excited to read about the ~mysterious~ Voynich manuscript, but that only took up like 3 chapters at the end. The vast majority of the book was a brief history of Roger Bacon and the development of scientific thought in Europe. Which was kind of interesting, but not really what I was here for. Plus I noticed at least one glaring (to me) historical inaccuracy, where the authors seemed to say that Mary Queen of Scots' claim to the English throne came through Henry VIII's older brother Arthur - which is obviously false, her claim is through one of Henry's sisters. It concerned me that they got so basic a fact wrong (basic because Arthur having legitimate children changes everything that happened in English history!). Maybe I misunderstood what they were saying, because that seems like something someone should've caught. It just made me question how accurate the rest of the book was.

I also really, really enjoyed those last few chapters that were actually about the manuscript and cryptography. I guess this just wasn't the book I was looking for on this subject.

[Lydia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm about 3/4 of the way through this book so far and even though I haven't finished it, I feel like I can weigh in a bit about it. The basic premise of this book is that Roger Bacon created the Voynich manuscript. The evidence for this is so thin and so unconvincing, though, that the author has spent the first 3/4 of the book summarizing all of Bacon's works, all of Thomas Aquinas' works, and John Dee's life and obsession with Roger Bacon rather than actually talk about Bacon's involvement with the Voynich manuscript.

The book is also riddled with factual errors -- at one point the author suggests that Henry VII was Henry VIII's older brother.

The idea that Bacon created the Voynich manuscript is an interesting one, but this book is (so far) completely underwhelming and not sufficiently scholarly.

Update, now that I'm finished: This book is a very sketchy summary of the lives of Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, John Dee, and the men and women in the 20th century who attempted to break the VMS code. It's very basic and doesn't offer any new perspectives on the creation of the VMS and is in all ways completely underwhelming and disappointing.

[Arden · Rating 1 out of 5]

A little while ago I heard about the Voynich manuscript, a medieval document in a language no one has ever been able to translate. I wanted to learn more about this manuscript so I got this book.

This book was a disappointment. It isn't really about the Voynich manuscript at all, and instead spends 200 pages talking about the relationship between Aristotle's philosophy and Christianity, as well as as the history of education in Europe. This book is confusing and has no sense of organization, and I would say that this wikipedia article is more informative than this book.

[Julie]

A mosh-pit of Aristotelian, medieval and Elizabethan history that had very little to do with the discovered manuscript and its translation. It was very readable, written in an almost folksy style, and made me want to learn more about Roger Bacon. But, the contents were so all over the historical map, it was hard to find a point of focus. The individual parts were fascinating but the sum was tedious.

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting review of the Church vs. Academics in the 12th century.

[Blyden · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent read, not as good as "Out of the Flames". To judge by the title I would think there would be more of a focus on Roger Bacon and on the "Cipher" but this is more of a history of the tension between religion and science from somewhat before Roger Bacon's time to a few centuries later, the time of Francis Bacon, covering a number of historical figures. In a way these are backstory and context for the Roger Bacon story, and also a route through time for the provenance of the "Cipher", but for my taste these "backstory" elements were relatively greater and the main story relatively sparser than I might have liked. I feel the "cipher" was used almost as a McGuffin for the narrative. We do get some core content about it, but it exists mainly as a device to weave the pieces together. The material on Roger Bacon's life was very interesting to me.

[Jeannie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite what I expected...
The book really presents Bacon in his historical and cultural context and significance. I like historical synthesis, so I liked this - and there are bits the author does brilliantly, such as his explanation of scholasticism, which is the best I have ever read.
Obviously this will not be of interest to everyone...
Overall worth reading to understand why - and how much - Roger Bacon mattered.

[KJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh, I'm disappointed. As some other reviewers here have mentioned, this book is not about the Manuscript itself so much as the entire history of scholasticism, philosophy, and natural sciences in 13th-century Europe. Great...but I wanted to read about the Manuscript. Yes, I'm sure that Roger Bacon was an interesting person, but, to my knowledge, there is no proof that he actually wrote the Manuscript. I understand the authors' thesis is that he did. But they don't try to back up their argument in any way whatsoever. Instead, they spend the entire book (I guess? I'm only halfway through, and losing interest fast) discussing the life of Roger Bacon! The book is about 5% Manuscript and 95% Bacon. It's basically a Bacon biography. It's as though they used the Manuscript as an excuse to write about Bacon. Please, stop with the Bacon. I want to read about the code-breakers. I want to read about Voynich himself--he seemed like a fascinating man, and yet they spent maybe two sentences discussing his escape from a Siberian prison camp.

In fairness to the authors, maybe I had the wrong idea of what this book was going to be when I picked it up. Maybe that's on me. But this is the only time in my life I've ever said this: there's just too much bloody Bacon!

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am admittedly a fan of Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone, and really liked this book. What could be an interminably dry subject in the hands of other authors is kept enjoyable and readable. However, the title is very misleading. A substantial portion of the book is devoted to the history of the relationship of the early Christian church with science, reasoning and discovery. This provides interesting background and context for the place Roger Bacon (not to be confused with Francis Bacon) occupied in history. But much of the book deals with topics that are not directly related to Bacon, and certainly not related to the titular cipher, the "Voynich Manuscript". Probably only one-fifth of the book, if that, discusses the manuscript and the endeavors to decode it. So while I personally enjoyed the book, and rate it highly, I do so with the disclaimer that this book is not what a reader might think it is based solely on the title.

[Mike Pollack · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am torn on how to rate this, on one hand it provided an interesting array of historical events of the 13th-16th century but on the other hand it wasn’t until about page 223 of 297 that the manuscript is discussed which one would assume is the focus of the book. The discussion of the book itself was interesting and I think a better approach would have been to simply focus on Bacon and then dig deeper into crypto analysis and the lives of some who sought to crack it. Interesting that pages can be spent talking about 13-14th century figures that seem to be totally unrelated yet the authors only mention in passing those recent crypto analysts involved like the Friedmans, Manly and Newbold and their methods.

[John Royal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goldstone achieved a readability score far in advance of most semi scholarly works. The narrative is engrossing and informative and the scholarship is serious. Good read, good mystery, far more interesting that the title might seem.

[Peter Stockinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you subscribe to the authors' opinion that "History is full of droll characters who exist on the periphery of great events, but even in this category [John] Dee stands out […]" this book might be for you. I wasn't impressed ...

[Rick Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book celebrates the 13th century scholar and science theorist Roger Bacon. The unsolved cipher manuscript may not have been Bacon's création, and the code remains unbroken. When you read this you get lots of intellectual and cryptological history. It's a good read.

[Barry who enjoys well-written thrillers, mysteries , & espionage & loathes romance, horror & supernat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I generally love Goldstone's books, this one just wore me down and eventually out - so I DNFed it. That's all I'm gonna say because I suspect that it really is a wonderful book that I just couldn't get into.

[David Sirna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could have been more aptly titled! I loved the windings through philosophical and political history, but I came here for the manuscript! It takes up a small amount of real estate in this book, but nonetheless it was an interesting read. Just know what you’re getting into!

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full review to come!

[lisa_emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came for the Voynich but stayed because of the Bacon

[Clare Shepherd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, unusual and intriguing history.

[Adelbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating reading!

[Marianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very well detailed... but I lost interest.

[Denis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book from the library while I was there getting some other reading material for the break, and it looked extremely promising. It is about Roger Bacon and the undeciphered Voynich manuscript. The book started off very promisingly, recounting the modern rediscovery of the book, but then it changed course. Instead of being about Bacon and the manuscript, the authors decided to conduct a little field trip through the history of philosophy and scholasticism. Now I wouldn't normally object to this, as most readers are unlikely to have the background knowledge to understand the historical context of Bacon's life, but as a student of history it always pisses me off with writers attempt to appeal to a popular audience by shoehorning history into a narrative form at the expense of accuracy. These authors clearly had a goal of rehabilitating Bacon's reputation, particularly vis a vis Thomas Aquinas, but in order to do so they chose to distort the history of the period. I'm no expert on 13th century Europe, so if I was able to notice errors in their presentation, I can only imagine how appalling it would be for someone with a more intimate knowledge of the subject.

My ultimate objection to the book was not even the issue of historical accuracy, which I have gradually come to accept will be of poor quality in most things I pick up. Rather, the authors were so focused on painting their picture of Bacon the hero of experimental science versus Aquinas and the anti-scientific forces of dogmatic religion, they largely neglected what could have been the most interesting part of the book, namely the manuscript and the unsuccessful efforts of virtually every major cryptographer of the 20th century to decipher it. Instead of writing on what the book claimed to be about, the authors seemed to be simultaneously trying to write a critical biography of Aquinas and to restore Bacon's status as first-tier figure in the history of science. The end result is a disappointing example of the sort of muddled writing that happens when you fail to stick to the subject you've chosen. If you are really interested in the manuscript, just read the first chapter and the last four chapters, but otherwise wouldn't recommend it.

[Paul Quick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found the Voynich Manuscript in northern Italy as part of a Jesuit Library. The author (probably mostly Nancy Goldstone) traced its finding back to its probable origin as Roger Bacon work. Chain-of Custody: Roger Bacon >> near oxford repository >> John Dee >> Francesco Pucci(spy) >> Emperor Rudolph >> Jacobus Horcicky de Tepenec(Botanist) >> Jesuit Library >> Villa MonDragone (castle,Frascatti, Italy). To understand how this occurred the author contends you need understand the historical context and the relevant clashing of sources of power i.e. Church (Scholasticism, Franciscans, Dominicans(, State (Henry II, Phillip Augustus , Emperor Rudolph ... ), Academia (Scientific method, Aristotle, Plato, Peter Abelard (Scholasitism), key persons (Thomas Aquinas,Francis bacon ..). It is a complex work for only 300 pages but the author pulls it off.
Interesting, how in-a-sense Francis Bacon completed Roger Bacon's argument against Thomas Aquinas/Scholasticism and won the day! The author did a good job of convincing by circumstantial evidence and Roger Bacons love of ciphers that Voynich's manuscript was written by Roger Bacon.

[David Merrill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was an interesting overview of the historical background of the Voynich manuscript. The majority of the book was about Roger Bacon and the historical beginnings of science and the opposition to it by Church hierarchy. There is also background on all the people involved in trying to decipher the Voynich manuscript. Over the last 400 years no one has succeeded. No one is sure if it's real or a hoax, though most suspect it is real.

As I was reading the book it became close to home, literally. I noticed a lot of the photographs were sourced to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale. So, as it turns out, the Voynich manuscript is housed 15 minutes from where I live. I even have a friend who works there. I could actually go and look at this thing in person, with little effort, if I want to. Then I noticed The Friar and the Cipher was largely researched at the Westport Public Library. These writers obviously live near me too.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story of bizarre 13th (or is it 15th? Or 17th?) manuscript written in an as-yet undeciphered cipher (sorry!) and attributed with some dispute to Roger Bacon. The husband and wife Goldstones trace the history of the manuscript as best as it is known, including a detailed history of Roger Bacon and his frantic times.

Similar to Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery which I recently read, the authors spend more time on the history of the era than on the topic in the title. While the sensational title sells the book, the background research fleshes out the story.

Interestingly enough, the manuscript has been subject to some computerized analysis with no success as yet. So much for the power of computerized cryptanalysis.

[Marc S · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a book titled "The Friar and the Cipher", I really expected more about the cipher. The book was billed as being about this strange manuscript from the 13th century, yet it barely got any mention in the book. Most of the 300 pages were devoted to the history/evolution of philosophy and science (and their clashes with the catholic church), from Plato all the way to Elizabethan England (and slightly beyond). While a very good read, I would have liked to have read more about the manuscript. If the "star" of the book only gets featured in about 30 pages, something is a bit off. If the authors had given that part of their book more attention, this could have easily attained 4-5 stars.

[Relstuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book. I hadn't really read much about Roger Bacon or his contemporaries. There is a large section of this book that explains the back story on Roger Bacon and then it explains the story of a manuscript that appears to have been written by Bacon. But the mysterious book is entirely in cipher. Some of the best code breakers in the last 100 years have not been able to crack the cipher. The people that broke the WWII Japanese, German, and other Axis codes took a crack at it. Without success. It remains an unsolved mystery but I enjoyed reading about it and the people of the time that created the mystery.

[Brackman1066 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a little disappointing. I hoped it would say more about the manuscript, and manuscript studies. Most of the book was a fairly potted history of Bacon (and of John Dee, who collected many of Bacon's works) that veered close to the edge of facile more than once. It was readable, and is a serviceable history of the high middle ages and 16th century. I notice that the author relies very heavily on some pretty dated sources, though (people have, in fact, written about this period in history since Richard Southern). A good quick read for a good quick introduction.

[Chinook · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a really cool book and very, very readable history. It mentioned Possession on the back, so I thought I'd have to like it.

It is one of the most entertaining and fun historical books I’ve read in some time. I learned a lot about Roger Bacon (not to be confused with Francis Bacon, though he figures in the story too) and many other historical characters. Perhaps the most amusing anecdote was about the death of Francis Bacon, who caught a chill while attempting to preserve the body of a bird using snow as part of a scientific experiment. Death by scientific inquiry. A good way to go.

[Doc Kinne · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are reviews which complain that this book is not quite what it advertises itself to be. Nominally about its cryptographic manuscript, it spends at least 80% of its time in an extended history lesson of Roger, & then Francis, Bacon. Now since my knowledge of these men was not the best, for myself, I could forgive this. However, if you're looking for greater details on the manuscript you'll probably be disappointed. Having said that, the ultimate conclusion is that we still don't know much about the manuscript.