{"id":2229,"date":"2019-03-25T20:22:04","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T17:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/?page_id=2229"},"modified":"2026-05-30T20:03:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T17:03:00","slug":"2018-2-astakhov","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/volumina\/2018-2\/2018-2-astakhov\/","title":{"rendered":"2018-2-\u0410\u0441\u0442\u0430\u0445\u043e\u0432"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Astakhov M.\u00a0A.<\/em> Late Medieval Homophonic Substitution Cipher and its Decipherment (Evidence from Little Known Spanish Document from the Archive of the Saint Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) [Digital Resource] \/\/ Vox medii aevi. 2018. Vol.\u00a02(3). P.\u00a0105\u2013125. URL: <a href=\"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/2018-2-astakhov\">https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/2018-2-astakhov<\/a><br>DOI: 10.24411\/2587-6619-2018-00018<\/p>\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"download-the-article\"><strong><a aria-label=\"\u0421\u0442\u0430\u0442\u044c\u044f \u0432 PDF (\u043e\u0442\u043a\u0440\u043e\u0435\u0442\u0441\u044f \u0432 \u043d\u043e\u0432\u043e\u0439 \u0432\u043a\u043b\u0430\u0434\u043a\u0435)\" href=\"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/VMA-2018-2-105-125-astakhov.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&gt; Download the article<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"maratastakhov\">Marat\nAstakhov<\/h3>\n\n\n<p>Independent Scholar, graduate of Lomonosov Moscow State University <br>marat1089@mail.ru <\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"latemedieval-homophonic-substitution-cipher-and-its-decipherment-evidence-fromlittle-known-spanish-document-from-the-archive-ofnbspthe-saint-petersburginstitute-ofnbsphistory-of-the-russian-academy\">Late\nMedieval Homophonic Substitution Cipher and its Decipherment (Evidence from\nLittle Known Spanish Document from the Archive of the Saint Petersburg\nInstitute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences)<\/h2>\n\n\n<p>The article\npresents a&nbsp;brief overview of&nbsp;the history of&nbsp;cryptography before the beginning\nof&nbsp;the Early Modern Period. Particular attention is&nbsp;paid to&nbsp;the homophonic\nsubstitution cipher used in&nbsp;the Late Middle Ages where each letter in&nbsp;the\nplaintext was replaced by&nbsp;several (more than one) characters in&nbsp;the ciphertext\nin&nbsp;accordance with its frequency. After examination of&nbsp;an&nbsp;encrypted letter of\n1460 from the royal chancery of&nbsp;the Crown of&nbsp;Aragon kept in&nbsp;the archive of&nbsp;the\nSaint Petersburg Institute of&nbsp;History of&nbsp;the Russian Academy of&nbsp;Sciences we\nsummarize some general principles of&nbsp;decipherment and give some practical\nrecommendations to&nbsp;the researchers engaged in&nbsp;such domain. As&nbsp;soon as&nbsp;the\nlanguage of&nbsp;ciphertext is&nbsp;recognized, cryptography manuals usually advise the\nfurther frequency analysis and comparison of&nbsp;results with the already known\ndata for the distribution of&nbsp;letters in&nbsp;a&nbsp;particular language. However, basing\non&nbsp;the fact that the homophonic substitution cipher was aimed to&nbsp;distort\nfrequency analysis and complicate the cracking, we&nbsp;developed our own approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After cataloguing the symbols, numbering and transferring them into a spreadsheet, the \u201cperspective\u201d of the text became visible, revealing stable combinations of signs and words-palindromes, which could be decrypted unambiguously. Therefore, like solving a crossword without clues, we deciphered the entire ciphertext. This experience could be useful for everyone who deals with medieval cryptographic documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Key words: <\/em>Crown of Aragon; Cryptography; Medieval Ciphers; Medieval Diplomacy; Methodology of Decipherment; Substitution Cipher.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2304,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-2229","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"no-featured-image-padding"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2229"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52941,"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2229\/revisions\/52941"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}