Decoding Gronsveld. Tower Windmill, Gronsveld, Limburg, The Netherlands
The Tower Windmill of Gronsveld is the southernmost windmill in The Netherlands. Built between 1618 and 1623 it's one of five such tower mills in the country and it still functions as a grist mill.
The village of Gronsveld just to the south of Maastricht in the Limburg language is called Groéselt, of which other forms are Grousselt or Grossvelt. It is said that 'Gronsveld' derives from an incorrect reading of the double-s in the original name. In older times the second 's' was written and printed to look like an 'f', hence Grousf(v)eld etc. The 'n' apparently references the 'n' of 'gro(e)n' (=green), said to describe the surrounding green fields.
'Coding' is especially appropriate to this place. Due to Covid-19 I couldn't visit the parish church to view the tomb of count Josse Maximilaan van Bronckhorst (1598-1662). Count Josse invented the so-called Gronsfeld cypher, a widely used encryption scheme for writing coded communications. He developed it from the Vigenère-scheme which derives from Giovanni Battista Bellaso's (1505-?) system of 1553. As far as I know, the attribution to 'Gronsveld' was first made by Gaspar Schott (1608-1666) in his Magia universalis. On the internet you will often/usually find incorrect attribution to a later Bronckhorst of the mid eighteenth century.
This cypher was used well into the nineteenth century, notably for readers of romantic travel fantasies in the books by great Jules Verne (1828-1905). As a lad I'd skipped over those references, but now I know!
Decoding Gronsveld. Tower Windmill, Gronsveld, Limburg, The Netherlands
The Tower Windmill of Gronsveld is the southernmost windmill in The Netherlands. Built between 1618 and 1623 it's one of five such tower mills in the country and it still functions as a grist mill.
The village of Gronsveld just to the south of Maastricht in the Limburg language is called Groéselt, of which other forms are Grousselt or Grossvelt. It is said that 'Gronsveld' derives from an incorrect reading of the double-s in the original name. In older times the second 's' was written and printed to look like an 'f', hence Grousf(v)eld etc. The 'n' apparently references the 'n' of 'gro(e)n' (=green), said to describe the surrounding green fields.
'Coding' is especially appropriate to this place. Due to Covid-19 I couldn't visit the parish church to view the tomb of count Josse Maximilaan van Bronckhorst (1598-1662). Count Josse invented the so-called Gronsfeld cypher, a widely used encryption scheme for writing coded communications. He developed it from the Vigenère-scheme which derives from Giovanni Battista Bellaso's (1505-?) system of 1553. As far as I know, the attribution to 'Gronsveld' was first made by Gaspar Schott (1608-1666) in his Magia universalis. On the internet you will often/usually find incorrect attribution to a later Bronckhorst of the mid eighteenth century.
This cypher was used well into the nineteenth century, notably for readers of romantic travel fantasies in the books by great Jules Verne (1828-1905). As a lad I'd skipped over those references, but now I know!