'I beg your grace that you suppress this chapter or else allow it to be written in secret letters': the emotions of encipherment in late-medieval gynaecology

The Voynich illustrations feature hundreds of naked women, some of whom have objects adjacent to or unambiguously pointed towards their genitalia. Taking its prompt from these illustrations, this paper investigates the obscurantist emotions evident in self-censorship, erasure, and encipherment in gynaecological and sexological texts and manuscripts. These subjects were often referred to as ‘women’s secrets’, particularly in Germanic cultural contexts, where the Voynich manuscript may have originated. Examples of encipherment, erasure, and self-censorship in gynaecological or sexological texts will be explored. Dr Johannes Hartlieb (c. 1410–1468), for instance, consistently obscured matters relating to coitus, women, and plants throughout his oeuvre, and called for encipherment of methods for contraception, abortion, and sterilisation. Luke Demaitre observed that some Germanic authors considered women’s sexual anatomy alluring but dangerous. It is possible that the Voynich authors were motivated by similar emotions relating to women’s secrets.