01 The record and its leaves
DECODE R9407 is described as “Augurellio to …”, five pages, Partially decrypted, alphabet with graphic signs and numerals, language unknown; its date, 1475/1625, is the span of the whole volume, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 4591, the Bavarian ducal chancery’s collection of cipher keys with ciphertexts bound in among them. The record carries seven images. In the order of the text:
- P3, f. 233r: a full page of cipher, thirty-four lines, with a contemporary interlinear gloss over the first three lines and two clear Latin phrases inside the text.
- P5: the second page, thirty-one lines, with a clear Latin sentence.
- P6, f. 235r: the third page, thirty-six lines, with one clear Latin phrase. The first pass took this image to be absent from the record; it is there, and it is the same leaf that image P4 shows at an angle beside the slip.
- P4, f. 234: the slip (Zettel), eight lines written across the leaf, with the news from Belgrade, Datum ut in literis and the ciphered signature.
- P7, the address leaf: two cipher lines of postscript, the signature again, and the superscription le[tte]re ad Mag[nifi]co domino Augurello that gave DECODE its title.
- P1–P2, the outer address, in clear: Doctor Christof [W…], Bayrisch rhat, meinem freundlichen lieben bruder, with the docket 10. Decembris 33 and München.
The images are not in the public domain, so no crop of them is reproduced here.
02 Who wrote it, and when
“Augurellio” is a name on the packet. The writer names himself inside, in cipher, at the foot of the slip and again at the foot of the address leaf, with the same fifteen signs both times:
ʏ m ↓ I π ω ʏ □ 7 ϝ ʏ ʏx ÿ σ γ = I o r g W e i n m a i s t e r
A faint later gloss over the second reads “… weinmeister”. The outer address sends the packet to the writer’s brother, a doctor and Bavarian councillor, for the dukes. The volume has a key made out for Augurelio (R9369, f. 172, Dno Aurelio Augurelio), and that key is not this letter’s: in it ω stands for l, here for e.
The date. The first pass dated the letter from its docket, read X Decembris 35. The figures are small and cursive, and on the second pass they were taken as 33; the contents settle it. The letter reports King John’s army besieging László Móré in Palota with Hungarians, Turks and Bohemians, and says the besiegers are still before the castle. That is the siege Hieronymus Łaski opened on 14 April 1533 with Hassan Bey’s Turks and fifty Bohemian miners, and which ended when the walls were mined at the end of May, Ferdinand standing aside by agreement with his rival. The letter also mentions a castle taken the day after Easter (13 April 1533) and Ferdinand’s new peace with the Turk. It was written between late April and May 1533; the docket is a filing date, and the slip’s Datum ut in literis refers to the covering letters.
03 The cipher and the key
System A′ is a homophonic cipher of invented signs, Greek-looking letters and numerals, written without word division. Letters have one to three signs each (homophones), and several signs carry two values in this hand (polyphony):
- letters: ω e, □ n, 4 e, ч i, ʏx s, ÿ t, 3 u, x̸ u, ↓ r, γ r, 8 n, 5 a, φ a, δ l, ӏ h, I g, 7 m, 9 o, Δ f, 6 d, ⊔ c, ⊹ k, ⊕ t, Ψ ll, ⍴ rr;
- two-valued: ∃ d/ch, π w/b/o, o b/w, ‡‡ g/u, ʒ s/ch;
- ligatures: ʒo = h, ꝏ° = sp (so Caspar is c–a–[sp]–a–r);
- word signs: the hourglass ⧖ = “F.G.”, fürstliche Gnaden, the same sign as in the sibling key R9427, and distinct from the slashed x̸ that is u; the dotted ·ʃ· = King Ferdinand, fixed by seins herren [ʃ] … das er [ʃ] mit dem turcken ein frid gemacht; and ∇, the name of the man besieging Palota with herr Caspar, probably Łaski.
- clear figures: two numerals stand in the cipher as numerals, mit 4000 zu fuess und ross and hundert tausent und 34 tausent gulden.
04 The decipherment
The contemporary gloss over the first lines of f. 233 reads Genedig fursten und herren … Caspar … das leger, and that is how the letter opens. The full decipherment, line by line, with open words marked, is in the repository (augurelio1535/pass2/reading.txt). Below, the German of the main passages and what they say.
f. 233r: the siege of Palota
Genedig fursten und herren, … ich zu herrn Caspar in das leger fur den Palota hab geschickt … Rerum novarum autem quod hic habemus … sol ich euer F.G. wie hernach volgt verstendigen, das er durch den [∇] und herr Casparn mit 4000 zu fuess und ross, ungern, turcken und Behamen, mechtigen ungern, … het in ainem festen schloss Palota genent belegern lassen, der lange zeit grosse merderei hat getriben, und von baidern auf dem tag zu Bresburg ist ausgeschlossen, also das ieder kunig, welcher zuvor kombt, straffen mag … umb hundert tausent und 34 tausent gulden geschetzt hat; und wiewol erstlich gedachts schloss nit nach herr Casparn rat vergeblich beschossen ist worden, iedoch hofft er es mit graben und maurwerch auszerichten.
Herr Caspar has been sent into the camp before Palota. King John has had the strong castle of Palota besieged by [∇] and herr Caspar with four thousand foot and horse, Hungarians, Turks and Bohemians: its holder has long carried on great murder and robbery, and at the diet of Pressburg both kings left him out of the settlement, so that whichever king comes first may punish him. The castle was valued at 134,000 gulden. It was first bombarded to no effect, against herr Caspar’s advice; now he hopes to take it by digging and undermining. The Latin Et propter illum hominem plures introduces those who have tried to get the castle relieved: this has not been permitted by [ʃ], Ferdinand, who thinks he has a peace with the Turk. So a Hungarian, Török Bálint, who one evening went drinking with [ʃ] at Vienna, was dispatched about the relief with the answer that he should come back and speak of such things in the morning, wan er nuechter sei, when he is sober. The Hungarians of his party took it as a great insult, and so the bishop of Veszprém was sent to [ʃ] with the message that everything done at Pressburg, at Constantinople and elsewhere had been done without their knowledge; they could not tell whether they had been given away or sold.
P5: the truce, Katzianer, Simontornya, the post
Their lord has always fed them with many words, which misled them more than it helped; now he must tell them where they stand. Before he left, [one of them] wrote to Katzianer (Cacianer) to ask what to expect of the truce and whether it would be extended. Katzianer answered that he had consulted his lord’s council and was to tell him, on behalf of his lord [ʃ], that [ʃ] mit dem turcken ein frid gemacht and would keep to it; he and his lord should keep the peace too and von der belegerung des More Lesl[o] abziechen, raise the siege of László Móré, or something would be undertaken against them and the castle relieved. Regardless of this threatening letter, [∇] and herr Caspar marched on the castle with many men and are still before it; they also took another castle, with much booty, the day after Easter, man heist s Simontornia, ist ser fest: Simontornya.
Illud tamen summum maximum esse existimo, das euer F.G. Hansen Schetinger, burger und kaufman zu Munchen, handlen und genedigklich zusprechen, das er zu Wien seinem factor, wan er doselbs grossen handel fuert, bevelch gebe, das er alle brief, so ime von herr Caspar oder von der […] zukomen, on allen verzug euer F.G. alweg zuschicke …
The main request: the dukes should have Hans Schetinger, burgher and merchant of Munich, tell his factor at Vienna, where he does a large trade, to forward at once every letter from herr Caspar; he could do it secretly. If the dukes dealt with Schetinger in this way, they would not need to use den iuden any further, dan im nit zu vertrauen ist.
f. 235r: the Jew, Minckwitz, herr Caspar, the Chancellor
The reason: the Jew let the letters be copied at Kraków before he delivered them, as he admitted to the writer himself, and as the dukes will learn from him. A secretary told the writer that he had seen at Kraków copies of the dukes’ letters in the hands of Minckwitz, and that they are common knowledge there. Minckwitz, the Saxon feuder, is at feud with [∇] and they have written each other letters of defiance; he has no other refuge, and no one knows what he might do with such copies:
wil das als euern F.G. [un]gehorsamer undertenigkait aus schuldiger pflicht haben angezaigt, damit kain ander der hendlung wissend vertacht werde.
After the Latin Quid autem actum sit: the writer has dealt with [a man whose name is not deciphered], told him of the dukes’ good will and offer, and he thanked them warmly and is glad to serve them; he has been told to treat with the Turk on their behalf, so that if [ʃ] makes peace with the Turk, [ʃ] should have peace with all his allies too, though without naming anyone, which he is willing to do. Herr Caspar bit in aller gehorsamer undertenigkait, euer F.G. wellen ine und seine kind genedigklich bedencken: herr Caspar asks the dukes to remember him and his children. All letters should go through Schetinger. The writer encloses a copy of a letter that [ʃ]’s councillor, now in Turkey, wrote to the regents at Vienna. As far as he understands, the Chancellor is also going to Constantinople, and he will report what is negotiated there, and keep a careful watch on the news.
The slip on f. 234, and the postscript
[Wiss]en: heut dato ist ein Ratz komen mit briefen, der sagt, wie zu Kriechischen Weissenburg funfczig tausent turcken sind ausgezogen hieher auf Ofen zu … doch nit was fur ein frid ist, wie dan euer F.G. aus [dem] schreiben zu vernemen haben, ist zu besorgen; auch wie mir er selbs het gesagt, der [ʃ] werde mer krieg dan frid haben. Datum ut in literis. Jirg Weinmaister.
Today a Rascian (a Serb) came with letters and says that fifty thousand Turks have marched out of Belgrade towards Buda; what kind of peace this is, the dukes can judge from the letters; it is to be feared, as the man himself said, that Ferdinand will have more war than peace. The slip is dated “as in the letters”, which is also what the faint later gloss over the line says. The postscript on the address leaf commends the writer to the dukes as his most gracious lords and is signed again.
05 How the key was applied and extended
The key of R9369, the one addressed to Augurelio, was tried first and rejected against the gloss. The letter’s system was recognised from the gloss pairs as System A′, and the key recovered from the R9427 gloss and extended on R9410 was carried across by the shapes of the signs, which gave running German at once.
- First pass. Candidate values for each sign were estimated statistically against a letter-trigram model of German, the most probable text was decoded and then rescored with word frequencies from the Deutsches Textarchiv; rounds of manual correction followed, each aligned back to the signs to re-estimate the key; about forty transcription corrections on the two main pages. Result: f. 233 and the P5 page at about 96%, the angled column 65%.
- Second pass. The record’s image list was taken from DECODE and P6 fetched. All pages were transcribed again, one character per sign; a solver (simulated annealing) against a language model of sixteenth-century German, started from the System A′ key with the gloss values fixed, gave German on every page. A decoder that chooses the value of each two-valued sign by context then decoded each line, and every line was compared with its crop. That separated the hourglass F.G. from the slashed u, found the clear numerals, the ligature mγ, the name signs, and several dozen single misreadings.
- History. Hungarian accounts of the 1533 siege of Palota (Łaski, Hassan Bey, the Czech miners, Móré) confirmed the decipherment of More Lesl[o] and Behamen and fixed the date.
The measure is a word count over the decipherment: a word counts only when its sense is not in doubt. 1,003 words, 33 open (30 words and three occurrences of ∇): 96.7%.
06 What remains
- About thirty scattered words, at most two or three on a line, whose signs are legible but give no word under the values the letter uses: among them the opening words of f. 233r line 1, a word before “turcken” (l. 5), the man before “zum [ʃ] geschickt” (l. 31), and a few words at the end of P5 (ll. 27–28). Every one was retried with the extended key and at the image.
- ∇, the name sign of the man who besieges Palota with herr Caspar (four occurrences): probably Hieronymus Łaski, who led the siege (grade C). Herr Caspar himself is not identified.
- One name at the head of f. 235r l. 16, the man the writer dealt with on the dukes’ behalf.
- Grades: the passages quoted above are C (key and context agree), except Ratz on the slip and Hansen Schetinger (spelt Schotinger later), which are M; the surname of the doctor on the outer address is not made out.
07 Sources
- Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Kurbayern Äußeres Archiv 4591, ff. 232–235, DECODE record R9407, images P1–P7 (by login; not in the public domain, published only by permission of the archive).
- The sibling letters and keys of the same volume: R9408, R9409, R9410, R9413, R9427 (System A′, with the contemporary gloss that carries the key), R9369 (the key made out for Aurelio Augurelio, f. 172), R9423 (the register of 1530s keys). See the KAA 4591 write-up.
- The siege of Palota, 1533: “Palota ostroma (1533)”, Hungarian Wikipedia; Rubicon, “1533. április 14.”.
- Language model:
lang/de-1500s, built here from Deutsches Textarchiv prints of 1472–1609. - No printed edition was found; the humanist Giovanni Aurelio Augurello, who died in 1524, is a different man.
Transcriptions, decipherments, the rebuilt key and the decoders are in augurelio1535/ (first pass in work/, second pass in pass2/).