Researchers have cracked a code that dates back to five centuries and reveals a French plot to kill the innocent. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, King of Spain Charles V.
Charles was one the most powerful men of 16th-century Europe, presided over a vast empire that encompassed much of western Europe and the Americas in a forty-year period.
The six-month process of deciphering the 1547 letter by the Emperor to his Ambassador in France took the Loria research laboratory in eastern France six.
This turbulent period witnessed a series of tensions and wars between France and Spain, which were ruled by Francis I, the Renaissance ruler who brought Leonardo da Vinci to France.
The letter from Charles V – Jean de Saint-Mauris was forgotten for many centuries in the Stanislas Library in Nancy.
Cecile Pierrot, Loria’s cryptographer, heard about it at a dinner in 2019. She was then able to locate it in 2021 after much searching.
It bore the signature of Charles V and was at once mysterious, but utterly unintelligible, she said to reporters Wednesday.
Strategy Snapshot
Pierrot discovered “distinct family” of around 120 symbols Charles V. used through painstaking computer work.
“Whole words can be encrypted with one symbol” and the Emperor replaced vowels that came after consonants with marks. She said this because of an inspiration likely coming from Arabic.
He also used symbols to mislead anyone trying to decipher another obstacle.
Pierrot made a mistake in June and was able to read the letter. With the help of Camille Desenclos (historian), the team cracked the code.
“It took a lot of hard work, but it was worth it. We had the right hypothesis in just one day.” she stated.
Jean de Saint-Mauris sent another letter in which Jean had also doodled in the margin a form transcription code.
There are more discoveries to be made
Desenclos claimed that it was rare for historians to be able “to read a letter that no other person has managed to read for five hundred years.”
It “confirms” the somewhat degraded status in 1547 of relations among Francis I and Charles V. Charles V had previously signed an agreement. Peace treaty signed three years earlierShe said,
She said that relations between them were still difficult, with several attempts to undermine each other.
Desenclos claimed that one piece of information was the rumor about an assassination plot against Charles V.
Although she said that not much was known about the plot, it highlighted the monarch’s “fear”.
She said that the researchers are now attempting to find other letters between Charles V and his ambassador, “to get a snapshot of Charles V’s strategy in Europe”.
“It is possible that we will find many more discoveries over the coming years,” said the historian.
