The Namenmantik Tradition and the Voynich Alphabetic Apparatus

The fifteenth-century German-sphere Namenmantik (name-divination) tradition assembled letter-value alphabets, exotic-script inventories, and rotational computational apparatus into manuscript codices whose structural vocabulary is recoverable in both rubricated and vernacular registers. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB) Cgm 7958, an autograph-tradition codex in the Hartlieb corridor, carries a multi-alphabet inventory at folios 22r–23v alongside an Onomatomancia apparatus driven by a cross-T start mark, circular letter-number wheel, mod-9/19/28/30 arithmetic chain, and weekday-value circle. Yale Beinecke MS 408 (the Voynich manuscript) carries on folio 1r, in the right margin and added post-main-text, a Latin alphabet sequence a–b–c–d–e–f–g–h–i–[j]–k–[l–m–n]–o–p–q–r whose visible run is approximately thirteen to fourteen letters; under the interpolation reading the slot count expands to seventeen. We propose that this sequence is structurally homologous to the rubric-label row in the Cgm 7958 multi-alphabet sheets, and we set the parallel out explicitly so that further witness-cross-reference can test it. We treat the comparison at the level of apparatus class (the kind of computational kit that a name-divination practitioner assembles) and do not advance an authorship inference. Substrate findings F-CGM7958-FOLS22R-23R (Supported), F-F1R-RIGHT-MARGIN-LATIN-ALPHABET-CIPHER-KEY (Confirmed), F-CGM7958-ONOMATOMANCIA-VOLVELLES-TRAVERSAL (Confirmed), and F-APPARATUS-EXCLUSIVE-GLYPHS-V-X-M-I (Confirmed, for the distributional anomaly) anchor the structural pieces. The parallel is suggestive; falsification routes, including a substantive engagement with the Greshko 2025 Naibbe-cipher competitor thesis, and the witnesses that would harden or refute it are listed in the tier-framing section and the Open Lines section. The deliverable is a comparator frame, not a decipherment.