Polygraphiae libri VI (Basel: Furter & Petri, for Haselberg, 1518)

Polygraphia VI — damage-preserving rendering, full_chunk_0001

Damage-preserving review rendering with tenor detection and footnoting. Damage class: mid_damage_recoverable; OCR quality: 5/5.

Audit note — V1.0 silently normalized “Peapolitani” and under-read the repeated “Securitas et” page as ordinary translated prose rather than preserving its formulaic/possibly cryptographic function.

Polygraphia VI, Back-Matter / Appended Text: Title and Opening Leaves

Page 001

Six Books of Polygraphy, by Johannes Trithemius, abbot [unclear: Peapolitanus / Peapolitan?]^3, formerly of Sponheim,^4 addressed to Emperor Maximilian.^5

[Oppenheim], 1518^6

Page 002

Six Books of Polygraphy, by Johannes Trithemius, abbot [unclear: Peapolitanus / Peapolitan?], formerly of Sponheim, addressed to Emperor Maximilian.

With grace and privilege [unclear: L. OS.].^8

Johannes Trithemius.

Page 003

SECURITY^9 and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and SECURITY and [the same formula continues repetitively through the page: “SECURITY / and / SECURITY …”].^10

Page 004

To the divine Emperor Maximilian:^5 a letter of Johannes Trithemius, abbot of St James at Würzburg,^11 on the Polygraphy.^12

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^2. Johannes Trithemius, humanist, Benedictine abbot, and author of the Polygraphia. ^3. The OCR reads “Peapolitani.” I do not silently normalize it. In context it is likely a damaged epithet tied to Trithemius’s abbacy, but the supplied image text is insufficient for a secure reconstruction. ^4. “Spanheimensis” = of Sponheim/Spanheim, Trithemius’s former abbey. The spelling is historically variable. ^5. Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. “Divus” in the address is honorific, not a claim of literal divinity. ^6. Oppenheim, the place of publication of the 1518 print. ^8. “Cum gratia et privilegio L. OS.” is damaged or abbreviated in the OCR. The formula means the book was printed with license/privilege, but “L. OS.” is not securely expandable from the supplied text. ^9. “Securitas” is also a technical watchword here: the page appears to repeat the term as a visual or cryptographic security exercise, not as ordinary prose. ^10. The source gives an extremely long mechanical repetition. I have represented the pattern rather than expanding every OCR line, since no lexical variation is present. ^11. “Herbipolensis” = of Würzburg; “sancti Iacobi Herbipolensis” identifies the abbey of St James at Würzburg. ^12. Polygraphia here means Trithemius’s work on multiple writings/ciphers; the title is better left as a technical work-title rather than flattened into generic “writing.”

Polygraphia VI — damage-preserving rendering, full_chunk_0015

Damage-preserving review rendering with tenor detection and footnoting. Damage class: mid_damage_recoverable; OCR quality: 5/5.

Audit note — v1 turned uncertain OCR into smooth claims, especially “nocturnal winds” and several damaged technical phrases, without marking conjecture or scanno risk.

Index, or Little Table, of the Things Contained in the Sixth Book

Index, Or Little Table

In the sixth [book], which is the last book of our Polygraphia,^1 after introducing the narration of [unclear], we have set out in order nearly all the fine details of the preceding signs^2 and degrees,^3 and, by arithmetical distributions,^4 have contracted the offices of grammar into the mystery of a cabalistic operation.^5

Something different lies hidden here in the bark, and something different is found in the common operation of the signs. For just as the spirit in the blood gives life to the human body, so the force lying hidden in the art [conjectured: commends / gives efficacy to] the operations. Therefore anyone for whom knowledge of this invention is necessary should open the eyes of understanding, so that he may comprehend what the property of each operation is. For we wish all things to be clear to good men in such a way that, if it were possible, nothing would become manifest to the reprobate.^6

A cause compelled us to adapt the letters of the Latins^7 to numbers, lest, if we were too obscure, the intention of our mind should be plain to no one. Yet this novelty, since it was not to be made public without reasonable cause, had to be hidden mystically under unknown numbering-signs and marks. For [unclear: nocturnal winds?]^8 are always stronger than diurnal ones; and just as night begins in its own order from day [or: begins the day], so light shudders at darkness. What nature denies, no one happily dares [to do].

We ask the reader not to condemn this laborious work of ours before he understands it, but, so that he may be a judge without rashness, to remove the bark prudently, in order to arrive at the hidden kernel. The work is good and natural; it can be turned to good use or bad, according as the desire of each person’s will moves him. A sword^9 is a good instrument, and it is turned to good use whenever it is carried for defense without injury to one’s neighbor. But if it is stretched out abusively for the wounding of anyone, through abuse a good thing is slackened into evil. Therefore, so that the good may have it and prudently consult for their own affairs, the Polygraphia has been written by us; and, lest there be occasion for the wicked to offend, the kernel is hidden in the bark under various enigmas.^10 Whoever is good does not abuse a good thing for evil; rather, if he can, he turns evil into good.

What The Causes And Uses Of This Work Are

We undertook the labor of the present work, rare and difficult as it is, for no other reason than to provide for the need of the needy. I mean need not of food, not of drink, but of assistance in preserving secrets^11 without danger. Therefore we judge that it will be useful if we briefly note the uses and advantages that can come to those who employ these aids of ours. For indeed, since in our domestic affairs there are no dealings in which we need these teachings for the hiding of secrets, we have surely labored for those for whom it had to be offered [conjectured: dutifully / piously].

The first use is that, once understanding of this work has been completed, it easily gives the needy person a method by which, safely, secretly, and without any suspicion on the part of anyone looking on, you will make known the secret of your mind, by the industry of the art, to one who knows it, however far there may be need, at any distance of places, by regulated speech. What lies hidden in these things the work of Steganographia^12 draws out; and it requires neither letters nor a messenger to carry the secret knowledge. It would be otherwise in matters admitting light, according to the common custom of all our people. [Unclear: Understand the matter otherwise, lest you be caught.]

The second use will be that, by the ministry of this work, in the space of a short time, a man ignorant of the Latin language, provided only that he [knows] the letters [text breaks off].

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^1. Polygraphia: Trithemius’s cryptographic work; here the sixth book is described as the final book. OCR regularly drops abbreviation marks in “polygraphie n[ostrae].” ^2. “Signs” (signa) are the operational cipher signs or symbols used in the system, not astrological signs in this passage. ^3. “Degrees” (gradus) likely means ordered cipher grades or steps. The OCR is readable as graduum. ^4. “Arithmetical distributions” translates arithmicis distributionibus, an OCR/early spelling form for arithmeticis distributionibus. ^5. “Cabalistic operation” reflects operationis cabalisticae; this is technical early-modern learned vocabulary for hidden-letter or mystical combinatory procedure. ^6. “Reprobate” translates reprobis, theological-moral vocabulary for the wicked or rejected. ^7. “Letters of the Latins” means the Latin alphabet; the OCR “lras latinor[um]” abbreviates litteras Latinorum. ^8. The OCR reads “ueti nocturnales,” which v1 silently read as “winds”; venti nocturnales is plausible but not certain from the damaged text. ^9. The sword example is a moral analogy for neutral instruments: a good object may be used defensively or abused for injury. ^10. “Enigmas” translates aenigmata/enigmata, here the deliberately obscure coverings of the cipher system. ^11. “Secrets” translates mysticorum in the damaged line “opitulamine mysticorum … conservatione”; the syntax is compressed but recoverable. ^12. Steganographia: Trithemius’s earlier work on hidden writing; here cited as the art that extracts what is concealed. OCR “steganographia op[us] eruit” is syntactically rough but intelligible.

Polygraphia VI — damage-preserving rendering, full_chunk_0070

Damage-preserving review rendering with tenor detection and footnoting. Damage class: mid_damage_recoverable; OCR quality: 4/5.

Audit note — V1.0 smoothed damaged phrases such as the opening word and final place-name into fluent English, masking uncertainty and treating cipher tables as ordinary translated content.

Polygraphia VI, Back-Matter / Appended Text (Style C Translation)

Closing Prose

[unclear; probably: People too] vary; customs vary, minds change, and clothing too varies. The simplicity of languages^1 is altered, the ancient proper character of idioms^2 is changed, and nothing stable is found in human affairs. For there is a turn-about of all things, and variety succeeds the simplicity of minds. Who will be able to bring this perpetual [conjectured: flowing-away], so to speak, back to the concord of unity? For many times pass by, as Scripture^3 says, and knowledge will be manifold.

That we add a third book^4 to the two preceding books of the Polygraphia^5 was not without a special reason. For, since human wills are various, multiple methods are rightly supplied for honorable operations.^6 In those former ones, night is illumined by day; in these, however, day is without light. There light leads shadow around within light; here, by contrast, the blind man illumines the blind, and, existing and remaining without eyes, ministers sight in darkness to one who does not have it. Here night clouds day over with perpetual murk, and, walking in darkness without light, supplies blind guidance.

These paraphrastic forms^7 serve [conjectured: nearly all] people, and in every language transmit any secret thing^8 safely, securely, and without danger to the cabalistic binary.^9 Latinity stirs barbarians, and barbarousness itself breeds suspicion among Latins. Yet it matters nothing, or little, since whatever suspicion there may have been, it will nevertheless contain every most secret mystery. Let the diligent operator^10 call back to mind the rules and precepts we have handed down, lest he labor uselessly and in vain for himself and others. For understanding is needed; without it the usefulness of no art will stand. In a few words we show a road to the greatest things, and through finite things we give a method for infinite things. From things given and received, greater things are easily prepared for friends.

Reader, remember that the retrograde mark^11 can be configured in every place, wherever you may take hold of the desired mark [unclear]. Farewell. From [unclear: Peapoli, perhaps Neapoli?]^12, on the first day of March, in the year of the Lord 1508.

Pages 379-383: Cipher Tables

The following material is not continuous Latin prose but tabular cipher vocabulary: letter-indexed substitution groups under headings “1 2 3,” continuing through numbered entries 49-96. I preserve it as technical apparatus rather than translate the artificial tokens.

Page 379 begins: a Abra / a mada / a badar; b Abre / b made / b bader; continuing through zv Abror / zv mador / zv bador.

Page 380 continues: a cadalan / a pasa / a adam; b cadelen / b pase / b adem; through zv cadolor / zv pasoz / zv adol.

Page 381 continues entries 49-72: a loza / a masara / a dama 49; through zv lozot / zv masarol / zv damoz 72.

Page 382 continues entries 73-96: a boda / a oma / a droma 73; through zv bodds / zv omol / zv dromol 96.

Page 383 is present only as a page marker in the supplied chunk.

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^1. linguarum is secure; OCR shows linguarũ with early-print abbreviation. ^2. idiomatum proprietas: the proper or characteristic form of idioms/languages; OCR abbreviation idiomatũ is straightforward. ^3. Alludes to Daniel 12:4, commonly “many shall pass through, and knowledge shall be manifold/increased”; OCR phrase is damaged but recognizable. ^4. tertium from OCR tertiu; the object is “book,” governed by the preceding phrase. ^5. Polygraphia: Trithemius’s cipher-writing work; OCR Polygraphixã librũs is damaged for Polygraphiae libros or similar. ^6. operationes: here technical cipher operations, not merely moral actions; OCR opationes is a scanno/omission. ^7. paraphrasemata: technical term for these paraphrastic cipher forms; OCR paraphraaemata has letter duplication. ^8. arcanum: secret matter/message; OCR archanũ is a common h/c intrusion or learned spelling confusion. ^9. cabalisticum binarium: a technical ciphering frame; “binary” is retained because the text says binarium, not because of modern binary code. ^10. operator: the practitioner using the cipher rules. ^11. nota retrograda: a retrograde/reverse mark in the cipher apparatus; OCR notam retrogradam is clear. ^12. Ex Peapoli is likely an OCR corruption, perhaps for Neapoli (“from Naples”), but the supplied letters do not permit certainty.

Polygraphia VI — damage-preserving rendering, full_chunk_0085

Damage-preserving review rendering with tenor detection and footnoting. Damage class: mid_damage_recoverable; OCR quality: 5/5.

Audit note — V1 mostly translated the recoverable prose but silently smoothed key damaged readings (bacuice, stratum, xiri) into coherent English, especially the closing date.

Polygraphia VI Back-Matter: Damage-Preserving Translation

Cipher Vocabulary Tables

The preceding material consists of alphabetic cipher-equivalents or nomenclator entries^1. I preserve them as transmitted, since they are not ordinary Latin prose:

[farabar / abasar / achar / adabar / helmar ...]

[mason / abra?on / icharon / adelon / meson ...]

[hamaym / abroym / achiorym / adorzaym / heroym ...]

[damas / hara / pai; abdias / abora / abai; acras / acora / acelai ...]

Individual damaged forms such as abra?on, ozvepila, and the zv entries should be treated as cipher-table readings, not translated words.

Page 464

With the demonstration^2 of the possibility of our new invention^3 shown as briefly, and no less sufficiently, as possible, I do not think that I myself should be wearied any longer in the same [unclear: bacuice], since the method^4 supplies a road onward without limit, if anyone needs an example for further things. Nor, indeed, do I think it necessary to bring back to memory the things that have been recited in the preceding sections, since, if the reader is shrewd and studious, he can also find, with the Lord's help, the greater things that lie hidden in these matters.

We have handed over to the wise and studious person both the material and the cause; if he wishes to use them prudently, he will surpass our ingenuity by his own. But whoever wishes this [unclear: stratum; perhaps "way" or "laid-out path"] to be more beautiful in the shade, let him join hand and mind to ingenuity, and make for himself a road more beautifully adorned by paraphrase^5.

Let memory hold this fixed, if these things are pleasing: that it must always remain within the prescribed circle^6. If it has overstepped that circle in any way, the whole operation^7 vanishes as useless. There are many names of human beings; indeed there are almost infinite vocabularies of things, villages, cities, provinces, herbs, trees, stones, and words, all of which serve our institutes. From these it is clear that it is not impossible for a book and a method to be made, if diligence and ingenuity are present, which surpass our inventions without limit.

But the person of such great dullness that he cannot understand these childish things of ours: how will he penetrate the subtler things that remain? We put an end to the fourth book of the Polygraphia^8, to which we join the fifth in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ^9.

The end is here of the fourth book of the Polygraphia of Johannes Trithemius^10, abbot^11, on Tuesday, the thirteenth day, in the year 1508^12.

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^1. The alphabetic lists are technical cipher vocabulary, probably nulls or substitution/nomenclator syllables. They should not be normalized into Latin; many forms are deliberately artificial. ^2. EMONSTRATIONE is an OCR/page-break loss for [conjectured: Demonstratione]. This is a light scanno, not authorial obscurity. ^3. novaeadínuationísnostrae is recoverable as [conjectured: novae adinventionis nostrae], "of our new invention." OCR joins words and confuses letters. ^4. iter modus may conceal a damaged phrase, but the sense "the method supplies a road/path" is defensible from modus and iter. ^5. parapbraisme is an OCR scanno for [conjectured: paraphrasime/paraphrasi], referring to paraphrastic elaboration in the cipher method. ^6. orbe ... prestituto means the prescribed circle/orbit/ring; in context this is technical cipher procedure, not cosmology. ^7. opera tio is word-division damage for operatio, a technical term for the cipher operation. ^8. polygraphiae names Trithemius's cryptographic work, the Polygraphia. ^9. Jesus Christ is invoked in the conventional Christian closing formula. ^10. Tríremij is an OCR scanno for Trithemii/Tritemii, Johannes Trithemius, Benedictine abbot and cryptographic author. ^11. abbatis identifies Trithemius as abbot; the following xiri is damaged and not securely expanded here. ^12. die Marti, anno M. D. VIII gives Tuesday in the year 1508; xiri before it is probably a damaged date element, but its exact value is not secure from the OCR alone.

Polygraphia VI — damage-preserving rendering, full_chunk_0103

Damage-preserving review rendering with tenor detection and footnoting. Damage class: mid_damage_recoverable; OCR quality: 5/5.

Audit note — It translated the cipher/example string as if ordinary context, while silently normalizing damaged tables and legendary names; the embedded plaintext, if any, was not recovered or flagged.

Polygraphia VI, Back-Matter: Alphabets, Numbering, and Honorius Thebanus

On The Previous Characters

Although these characters^1 do not appear sufficiently beautiful and graceful, it nevertheless pleased me to join them with my aforesaid new inventions, out of honor and reverence for antiquity, since there is no one even a little industrious who cannot devise prettier ones for himself at his own discretion. Yet this misshapen crookedness, once continuous practice in writing has been applied, will be able to correct itself by an easy compensation, and, when repeatedly brought into habit, to make itself pleasing. For no one, however learned or educated, is even a good scribe^2 in any language unless, by long habit, he has changed the practice of writing into an art. Another follows.

[Table of cipher-characters and Latin letters/numerals omitted from translation as tabular sign forms; OCR letter-forms partly unstable.]

Rules For Inventing An Alphabet

If anyone wishes, at his own discretion, to fashion a new alphabet^3 for himself, let him know that two things especially must be observed, although I do not always find them preserved in the preceding examples. The first is that he form characters of easy stroke; and the simpler they are, the better they will be. The second is that he arrange the individual letters so that, joined together into words, they present a beautiful and graceful face. I add a third thing, not promised before: if you wish the writing to remain secret, make some letters of the alphabet double, in the manner of the Hebrews.^4

Alphabet Of Hichus

The alphabet of Hichus,^5 ancient prophet of the Franks.^6

[Table of Hichus/Frankish characters omitted from translation as tabular sign forms; several OCR readings such as “Ich,” “ph,” and “or” may reflect ligature or glyph-name confusion.]

This Hichus the Frank, with Marcomer,^7 came from the borders of Scythia^8 to the mouths of the Rhine^9 in Germany, and is said to have invented these characters as a supplement to the German language; they also seem in many respects to agree well enough with it. Pharamund^10 too, king of the Franks in Germany after Marcomer, who had introduced the people, [conjectured: the forty-third], and he died in the year of the Lord’s nativity 426: when he had sent his scouts through Gaul^11 for the purpose of invading it, he ordered them to write in such characters.

[Table of characters attributed to Pharamund’s scouts omitted from translation as tabular sign forms; the OCR is uneven and some rows appear short.]

Alphabet Found In Bede

Besides that alphabet of the Northmen^12 which we placed at the beginning of this sixth book, we have also found the following written out in Bede,^13 and we commend it to letters.

[Table of Northmen/Bede characters omitted from translation as tabular sign forms; OCR preserves a mixed sequence of Latin, Greek-like, and numeral-like signs.]

Alphabets From Latin Letters And Numbers

From Latin letters also many alphabets are made, when, either reduced to number according to the example that we handed down in the preceding fifth book, or otherwise, in imitation of the Northmen, with Greek letters too, they provide for our letters a very secure method of reporting whatever we wish. Let us consequently set down, according to the number and order of our usual alphabet, those letters themselves changed in an unusual way, and we shall have a secret and mystical^14 mode of writing, beautiful and graceful enough, confirmed by habit. But this method of numbering is different from the one that we placed in the fifth book, and is more suitable for our purpose.

[Number table omitted from translation; OCR has likely positional confusions, especially repeated b/l/i forms and compounds such as “dp,” “pd,” “qd.”]

Once these principles of numbering with our letters have been correctly understood, it will now be easy to bring the number down to any desired progression, as has been shown clearly enough in the preceding book. Now let us arrange an alphabet from these.

[Derived alphabet table omitted from translation; OCR readings such as “íc/íd/íb,” “i et,” and “kd” are preserved only as damaged table data, not silently normalized.]

You now have, from Latin letters, a foreign alphabet, such as, as we said above, the Northmen once made for themselves out of Greek letters; with it, provided the necessary diligence is observed, you will safely write to a friend, to one acquainted with the invention, whatever you wish for the time. Let us add also another, which we judge [conjectured: to be worth mastering / of masterly quality].

[a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z]

Although in Latin speech we have no need of k, y, and w, nevertheless, because we use k and w in German, we have brought this alphabet too down to the number twenty-four for drawing out. This mode of writing can also be varied in many ways at pleasure. [unclear cipher-text: “uig mgocpuavqvaciz xvmmigogmz m mrvqmmz iqm vcuigiiricmvpms”] according to the will of every writer.

Honorius Thebanus

There follows another alphabet of Honorius, surnamed the Theban,^15 by whose service he concealed his follies in magic,^16 as Peter of Abano^17 testifies in his larger fourth book.^18

Tenor (German plaintext concealed by the cipher)

uig mgocpuavqvaciz xvmmigogmz m mrvqmmz iqm vcuigiiricmvpms

This appears to be a ciphertext example rather than an openly readable German tenor in the supplied OCR. I cannot responsibly recover a verbatim German plaintext from this string without the intended substitution/key; no modern English tenor translation is therefore supplied.

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^1. “Characters” here means cipher-signs or alphabetic glyphs, not moral qualities. OCR spacing “character es … compare ant” is a light scanno for characteres … compareant. ^2. “Scribe” translates scriptor in the practical sense of one skilled in writing or penmanship. ^3. Alphabetum is used technically for an enciphering alphabet, not merely the ordinary ABC. ^4. “In the manner of the Hebrews” refers to duplicate/final letter-forms or variant letter-shapes used as a secrecy device; Trithemius applies the analogy cryptographically. ^5. Hichus/Hicbus is unstable in the OCR and probably in the print tradition; the heading gives HICHI, while the prose reads Hicbus. I retain “Hichus” as the least disruptive normalized form. ^6. “Ancient prophet of the Franks” renders Francorum prisci vatis; this is legendary ethnographic material, not reliable Frankish history. ^7. Marcomer is the legendary Frankish leader Marcomer/Marcomir. OCR “Marcomerũ” is an abbreviation for Marcomerum. ^8. Scythia is the conventional classical/medieval name for northern or eastern borderlands, often used in origin legends. ^9. “Mouths of the Rhine” renders ostia Reni; OCR Reni for Rheni is a common h-loss/classical spelling issue. ^10. Pharamund is the legendary early king of the Franks. OCR abbreviations in “Pharamundus etia rex Francoru” expand to etiam and Francorum. ^11. Gaul, Gallia, is the Roman/medieval geographical term for the region later associated with France. ^12. “Northmen” renders Nortmanni/Nortmannorum, here tied to runic or pseudo-runic alphabets. ^13. Bede is presumably the Venerable Bede; the passage claims an alphabet found “apud Bedam,” but the exact source is not identified here. ^14. “Mystical” translates mysticum in the cryptographic/arcane-writing register, not necessarily a devotional experience. ^15. Honorius Thebanus is a legendary magical authority associated with ritual and magical alphabets. ^16. “Follies in magic” translates magicis fatuitates; the polemical tone is authorial, not OCR damage. ^17. Peter of Abano, Petrus de Apono/Petrus Aponensis, medieval physician-philosopher often cited in occult and astrological traditions. ^18. “In his larger fourth book” renders damaged “maiorcl libro quarto”; maiorcl is likely OCR for maiore or maiori, but the exact title/reference remains uncertain.

Polygraphia VI — damage-preserving rendering, full_chunk_0110

Damage-preserving review rendering with tenor detection and footnoting. Damage class: unrecoverable_blocks_present; OCR quality: 2/5.

Audit note — V1.0 was mostly faithful before Clodius, but it presented heavy terminal OCR corruption as a simple “[unclear]” continuation rather than flagging a substantial unrecoverable block.

Polygraphia VI, Back-Matter: Tullian Notes and Pharamund

On Tullian Characters

where, according to their order, the characters or signs^1 are first set down, and afterward the words designated by [conjectured: those same] characters, so that each word is signified by the sign assigned to it. With these signs or characters we once saw a whole Latin psalter,^2 beautifully written out, in the library of the greater church of Strasbourg.^3 Some judge of such things, ignorant, I do not know for what reason, had put this title on the outside: “A Psalter in the Armenian language.”^4 But he was wrong, since it should rather have been written thus: “A Latin psalter written in Tullian characters.”^5 For each character represents one complete Latin word. Nor does my estimate deceive me, since I have in my possession, written in an old volume, the very dictionary of Cicero,^6 corrected by Saint Cyprian,^7 complete and uncorrupted, which I have never seen elsewhere. So great, indeed, is the supply of signs or characters, together with the words placed under them, that they are wholly sufficient for writing in the Latin tongue whatever you wish.

Mystery

Pharamund,^8 forty-third from Marcomer,^9 king of the Franks,^10 when, in the year of the Lord’s nativity 424, he powerfully entered the borders of the Gauls,^11 and the rest.

Explanation

The kings of the Franks, from that time when, having left the Scythian borders^12 in the year 430 before the birth of Christ with their peoples, they settled at the mouths of the Rhine, where Gelderland^13 now is, waged continuous war against the Gauls for almost nine hundred years, and at last violently made them subject to themselves, as we have written in the first volume of our Annals.^14 From these, the aforesaid king Pharamund, so that he might send messengers safely through the kingdom, devised new letters, proper to himself, which no one could know without instruction voluntarily given by him. Nor did he use one only, nor a few, but many new alphabets.^15

Mystery

Clodius the Hairy,^16 son of Pharamund, and after[unclear: a long unrecoverable OCR repetition follows].

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^1. “Characters or signs” renders characteres sive notae; in this context, shorthand or cipher-signs rather than alphabetic letters alone. ^2. Psalterium latinum integrum: a complete Latin Psalter, i.e. the Book of Psalms in Latin. ^3. “Strasbourg” renders Argentineñ., an OCR-damaged abbreviation for Argentinensis, Strasbourg/Argentoratum. ^4. Armenian language: the title is presented as a mistaken external cataloguing label, not Trithemius’s own identification. ^5. “Tullian characters” means notae Tullianae, the shorthand tradition associated with Marcus Tullius Cicero and Tiro; OCR cooescriptũ is read as conscriptum. ^6. “Dictionary of Cicero” renders dictionarium ipsum Ciceronis; this is Trithemius’s claimed word-list for the shorthand signs, not a modern lexicon by Cicero. ^7. Saint Cyprian: Cyprian of Carthage, here credited in the tradition with correcting/emending the Tullian note-system; seto is an OCR scanno for sancto. ^8. Pharamund/Faramundus: legendary early king of the Franks. The OCR has Faramũdus/faoeramũdus. ^9. Marcomer: legendary Frankish ruler and ancestor in medieval Frankish origin narratives. ^10. Franks: Francoruoe repeatedly represents Francorum; the -oe endings are OCR damage for abbreviation marks. ^11. Gauls: Gallooe represents Gallorum/Gallos depending on case; the sentence here requires the borders/territories of the Gauls. ^12. Scythian borders: fines Scithicos, part of the legendary Trojan/Scythian origin geography of the Franks, not reliable ancient ethnography. ^13. Gelderland: Gelria, a Low Countries place-name near the Rhine mouths in Trithemius’s framing. ^14. Annals: annalioe nostrũ volumine is read as annalium nostrum volumine, referring to Trithemius’s historical-annalistic work. ^15. Alphabets: alphabetis novis here means cipher alphabets or invented scripts for secret communication. ^16. Clodius Crinitus, “Clodius the Hairy/Long-haired,” another legendary Frankish king; OCR Crinioe is a recoverable scanno for Crinitus, while the following repeated -oe sequence is unrecoverable OCR corruption.