Touching on Codes

 

Lambeth Palace Library - MS 658 f. 58 - Adam Bacon Papers

The above is a letter to Elizabethan-era spy Anthony Bacon (brother of Sir Francis Bacon) from correspondent H. H.  You can see code being used in the 8th line from the bottom in the main body of the text.  I imagine this code has to do with political goings-on in other countries rather than communicating about a hidden object, but I thought it would be interesting to share nonetheless.  Below is the binding of this volume of Anthony Bacon papers.

Lambeth Palace Library - MS 658 f. 58 - Adam Bacon Papers

British Library - Sloan MS 3679 - Piccatrix

The above is from a book once owned by Richard Napier (an English cousin of mathematician John Napier).  The book is known as a piccatrix, a book of magic.  I'm not sure if this is a code or if it has to do with astrology or alchemy or other.  The binding of this manuscript is shown below.

British Library - Sloan MS 3679 - Piccatrix

Tractust de Arte Astrological et Magica - British Museum

The above and blow are from the "long-lost" book of Soyga, which was "rediscovered" in the British Library (another copy found in Oxford's Bodleian) in the 1990s.  This book belonged to John Dee, and it was thought that it would shed further light on his communications with angels.  I don't know that what we're looking at here involves a code, but the meanings here are certainly hidden from me.  The cover is two pictures down.  By the way, soyga spelled backwards is agyos or agios, which is Greek for holy.

Tractust de Arte Astrological et Magica - British Museum

Tractust de Arte Astrological et Magica - British Museum

British Library - Claves Angelicae

I believe the image above and four images below have to do with names of angels, but all of them are giving me ideas for codes that I might use rather than the Cardan Grille.

British Library - Claves Angelicae

British Library - Claves Angelicae

I especially like the ideas of making a grid of letters and then having the decryption involve tracing a path through the letters.

British Library - Claves Angelicae

The four pictures above are from John Dee's Claves Angelicae or Key to the Angels (?).  Below this is the binding and the frontispiece.

British Library - Sloan MS 3191 -Claves Angelicae

British Library - Sloane MS 3191 - Claves Angelicae - frontispiece

The codex below contains two works, one of which is one of which is a book on encryption by Jacopo Silvestri.  It was the second book printed on the topic of encryption (1526).  John Dee purchased this book in Venice in 1563, as you can see noted in his own handwriting in the second picture below.  

British Library - 8405.a.9. - Silvestri, Jacopo - Opus novum

British Library - 8495.a.9 - Silvestri, Jacopo - Opus novum

British Library - 8405.a.9 - Silvestri, Jacopo - Opus novum

The images below are from a book about Dee and his conversations with angels by Meric Casaubon.  The grid shown is of the tables or book of Enoch.  One of John Dee's goals was to find the language of the angels, the language that was spoken in the Garden of Eden.  He communicated with angels in order to try to discern this.  It is sometimes called the Enochian Language, though Dee never called it that.  Here too I see great ideas for codes.

Bodleian Library - Ashmole 580

Bodleian Library - Ashmole 580

The next two images are the frontispiece and the binding.

Bodleian Library - Ashmole 580

                                                      Bodleian Library - Ashmole 580

One way of writing in code is to transliterate your message to another language.  John Dee often did this with Greek.  He just took the English letters of what he wanted to write and converted them to the corresponding Greek letters instead.  In other words, he wasn't writing in the Greek language, he ws just masking his letters by using a different alphabet.  What follows is from one of his diaries (kept in an almanac or "ephemerides").  For example the first word below is "this," which is written out using the letters theta, iota, sigma.

The full message says, "This night my wife dreamed that one cam to her and touched her, saying 'Mistres Dee, you are conceived of child, whose name must be Zacharias; be of good chere, he sal do well as this doth!'"

There are two volumes of Dee's diaries in the Bodliean: Ashmole 488 and Ashmole 487.  I'm not sure which of the two I was consulting when I took the picture above.  I could figure it out give time to look at my pictures and my journal.

There have been codes since time immemorial, going back at least as far as the famous Ceaser Cipher, which is just a letter substitution by shifting the alphabet a space or more down.  I imagine most codes have been used for military secrets - or by lovers - or for political intrigue.

I'm only aware of one that has to do with treasure, and that is the Beale Cipher from 1820s America, which can be found at this link: https://www.peaksofotterwinery.com/beale-treasure-codes

There is also a fifteenth-century codex known as the Voynich Manuscript, which no one has been able to decipher, so who knows what secrets that holds!  (This is in Yale's collection, and I haven't traveled there yet, despite it being in the US!)