At a glanceKnown key applied · complete
- The postscript
- An undated postscript (late 1648 or early 1649), fol. 399, in the correspondence of the Saxe-Altenburg envoys at the Westphalian congress, Wolfgang Conrad von Thumbshirn and Dr August Carpzov.
- Where
- Landesarchiv Thüringen – Staatsarchiv Altenburg, Schönbergische Sammlung Nr. 85, image 0837 (ThULB Jena digitisation, CC BY 3.0).
- The cipher
- A simple substitution of 24 letters and numbers 1–52 on Thumbshirn’s signed key sheet (image 0003); the 1647 letters of the volume use a homophonic system.
- How it was deciphered
- Brice Dudout applied the key sheet unchanged and read all 23 words; he also rebuilt the 1647 key from the decipherments of the time and validated it on a held-out letter (0.966 against at best 0.245). The project repeated neither and did not see the images.
- What it says
- “O miseros nos servos. Gott weis und hat meine Zähren gesehen, die ich bereit viel vergossen über der schändlichen Servitut, darein wier geführet.”
- Still open
- The three probable words rest on numbers marked uncertain in the transcription (two under stains); no second reader; the measurement tested the 1647 key, not the key sheet.
- Credit
- The transcription, the key tests and the reading are Brice Dudout’s (L’Europe chiffrée), produced by Claude Opus 5.5 agents under his protocol; the transcription is by an AI agent and no human palaeographer has checked it. The images were not seen here and are not reproduced.
01 The volume
Nr. 85 of the Schönbergische Sammlung in the Landesarchiv Thüringen – Staatsarchiv Altenburg is the correspondence of the Saxe-Altenburg and Saxe-Coburg envoys at the Westphalian congress, Wolfgang Conrad von Thumbshirn and Dr August Carpzov, with Johann Friedrich von Brand and Duke Friedrich Wilhelm II, Osnabrück 1645–1651. The ThULB Jena digitisation (urn:nbn:de:urmel-stat-251122) is licensed CC BY 3.0. Image 0003 is Thumbshirn’s signed key sheet, a simple substitution of 24 letters and numbers 1–52 written without word breaks. The letters of 13 November to 25 December 1647 have cipher passages in a homophonic system, each with a decipherment of the time on a slip, which makes them existing readings. Image 0837 (fol. 399), an undated postscript of late 1648 or early 1649, has one cipher sentence and no decipherment: the new text. The contributor, Brice Dudout (L’Europe chiffrée, with Claude Opus 5.5 agents), read it; no images are reproduced here.
02 The two keys
The postscript reads with the period key of image 0003, used unchanged. The key sheet does not read the 1647 letters (0.13 on the held-out letter, chance level), which use another system. The contributor rebuilt that second, homophonic key (numbers 1 to 90, mostly 2–3 per letter; 48 values, two of them taken from the key sheet) from the decipherments of 13 and 17 November and 22 and 25 December 1647, aligned number by number (two values, for 41 and 52, come from the key sheet), and measured it once on the letter of 24 December 1647, held out: 9 passages, 441 gloss letters, character agreement 0.966 against at best 0.245 for 200 shuffled keys, coverage 99.8%, which passes the thresholds fixed in advance. The contributor attributes the remaining differences to transcription or encipherer errors (not individually checked; at word level 57 of 70 matched). The protocol was hashed before any decoding. The project did not repeat the test and did not see the images.
03 The postscript
O miseros nos servos. Gott weis und hat meine Zähren gesehen, die ich bereit viel vergossen über der schändlichen Servitut, darein wier geführet.
In English: O wretched servants that we are! God knows, and has seen the many tears I have already shed over the shameful servitude into which we have been led. All 23 words read: 20 certain and 3 probable (three numbers are marked uncertain in the transcription: two under stains and one at a line break, where 17 is possible but gives no sense), no word restored and none unresolved; a few omitted letters (e and h, and the umlauts the key lacks) are supplied in the quotation above. Declared deviation: this reading uses the period key and the sense, not the pre-registered measurement, which tested the other (1647) system. The contributor’s transcription of the postscript is in transcription_0837.txt.
04 What remains uncertain
- The three probable words rest on numbers marked uncertain in the transcription (two under stains); the images were not seen by the project and nobody has repeated the reading.
- The measurement tested the 1647 key, not the key sheet that reads the postscript; the postscript’s evidence is that its 23 words build a Latin exclamation followed by a German sentence.
- No edition of Nr. 85 was found (the ThULB record cites none; Acta Pacis Westphalicae, Meiern and Brunert were checked and none was found to print Nr. 85); the 1647 passages already have decipherments of the time, so only the postscript is new.
- Catalogue 1639 (the Magdeburg envoys at Osnabrück) is possibly related and was not compared.
Full texts
The transcription and the decryption of every document on this page, so that the reading can be used and checked. Short files are shown here; all are in the repository.
Postscript, fol. 399 (image 0837), late 1648 / early 1649
A personal lament put into cipher: 'O wretched servants that we are! God knows, and has seen the tears I have already shed so often over the shameful servitude into which we have been led.'
Transcription
# Image 0837 (fol. 399), postscript, undated (late 1648 / early 1649), cipher only. Transcribed 9 Nov 2026 by an AI agent. Shapes "1z" = 12, "1r" = 17 (cf. key 0003). [x] = number under a stain, probable reading. L1 32.15.30.12.6.18.32.12.22.32.[12] L2 12.6.18.17.32.12.52.32.26.41.6.30.12.17.22.1.2.3 L3 26.15.6.30.22.6.43.6.2.[18].22.52.6.12.6.[2].22.1.30 L4 6.30.8.2.5.6.18.6.30.26.17.30.6.9.17.6.18.52.32 L5 12.6.22.17.5.18.1.6.18.12.8.2.3.22.1.9.30.8.2.22.12 L6 6.18.17.30.26.17.26.1.3.18.6.30.22.41.30.6.18.52.6 L7 10.17.18.6.26
Decryption
# Reading: postscript, image 0837 (fol. 399), LATh - StA Altenburg, Schönbergische Sammlung Nr. 85 (late 1648 / early 1649)
Key: **the period key of image 0003** (`key_0003.tsv`), simple substitution, used as it stands, with no change. 112 numbers, 112 letters; no number outside the key. Cipher: `transcription_0837.txt`.
Raw decoding: omiserosnos | seruosgotweisundhatmeinezehrngesehndieichbereituieluergosenubrderschandlichnseruitut dareinwiergefuret
Text (spelling of the cipher; [x] = letter not in the cipher, added; {x} = probable):
> O miseros {nos} servos. Gott weis und hat meine {Zehr[e]n} {geseh[e]n}, die ich bereit viel vergos[s]en üb[e]r der schandlich[e]n Servitut, darein wier geführet.
Count (23 words): **certain 20, probable 3, restored 0, unresolved 0** = 23/23 read by sense (100%).
- {nos}: last number of line 1 under a stain (12 = s, probable); "nos" is required by the sense.
- {Zehr[e]n} (= Zähren, tears): the number at the line break 43.6.2.**18**.22 is read 18 (r); 17 (u) is possible but gives no sense.
- {geseh[e]n}: the 5th number (2 = h) is under a stain.
- Letters left out by the encipherer (the e of Zehren, gesehen, über, schändlichen; the second s of vergossen) are ordinary abbreviated spelling, not restored words.
Translation: "O wretched servants that we are! God knows, and has seen the tears I have already shed so often over the shameful servitude into which we have been led." A personal lament (the clear part of the page speaks of "Mein Patron"), with only this sentence put into cipher.
Declared deviation: this reading is outside the pre-registered test, which measured the other system (the 1647 homophonic key). It rests on the period key itself, unaltered, and on the sense of the whole sentence (no value adjusted).Reading
# Reading: postscript, image 0837 (fol. 399), LATh - StA Altenburg, Schönbergische Sammlung Nr. 85 (late 1648 / early 1649)
Key: **the period key of image 0003** (`key_0003.tsv`), simple substitution, used as it stands, with no change. 112 numbers, 112 letters; no number outside the key. Cipher: `transcription_0837.txt`.
Raw decoding: omiserosnos | seruosgotweisundhatmeinezehrngesehndieichbereituieluergosenubrderschandlichnseruitut dareinwiergefuret
Text (spelling of the cipher; [x] = letter not in the cipher, added; {x} = probable):
> O miseros {nos} servos. Gott weis und hat meine {Zehr[e]n} {geseh[e]n}, die ich bereit viel vergos[s]en üb[e]r der schandlich[e]n Servitut, darein wier geführet.
Count (23 words): **certain 20, probable 3, restored 0, unresolved 0** = 23/23 read by sense (100%).
- {nos}: last number of line 1 under a stain (12 = s, probable); "nos" is required by the sense.
- {Zehr[e]n} (= Zähren, tears): the number at the line break 43.6.2.**18**.22 is read 18 (r); 17 (u) is possible but gives no sense.
- {geseh[e]n}: the 5th number (2 = h) is under a stain.
- Letters left out by the encipherer (the e of Zehren, gesehen, über, schändlichen; the second s of vergossen) are ordinary abbreviated spelling, not restored words.
Translation: "O wretched servants that we are! God knows, and has seen the tears I have already shed so often over the shameful servitude into which we have been led." A personal lament (the clear part of the page speaks of "Mein Patron"), with only this sentence put into cipher.
Declared deviation: this reading is outside the pre-registered test, which measured the other system (the 1647 homophonic key). It rests on the period key itself, unaltered, and on the sense of the whole sentence (no value adjusted).Translation
# Reading: postscript, image 0837 (fol. 399), LATh - StA Altenburg, Schönbergische Sammlung Nr. 85 (late 1648 / early 1649)
Key: **the period key of image 0003** (`key_0003.tsv`), simple substitution, used as it stands, with no change. 112 numbers, 112 letters; no number outside the key. Cipher: `transcription_0837.txt`.
Raw decoding: omiserosnos | seruosgotweisundhatmeinezehrngesehndieichbereituieluergosenubrderschandlichnseruitut dareinwiergefuret
Text (spelling of the cipher; [x] = letter not in the cipher, added; {x} = probable):
> O miseros {nos} servos. Gott weis und hat meine {Zehr[e]n} {geseh[e]n}, die ich bereit viel vergos[s]en üb[e]r der schandlich[e]n Servitut, darein wier geführet.
Count (23 words): **certain 20, probable 3, restored 0, unresolved 0** = 23/23 read by sense (100%).
- {nos}: last number of line 1 under a stain (12 = s, probable); "nos" is required by the sense.
- {Zehr[e]n} (= Zähren, tears): the number at the line break 43.6.2.**18**.22 is read 18 (r); 17 (u) is possible but gives no sense.
- {geseh[e]n}: the 5th number (2 = h) is under a stain.
- Letters left out by the encipherer (the e of Zehren, gesehen, über, schändlichen; the second s of vergossen) are ordinary abbreviated spelling, not restored words.
Translation: "O wretched servants that we are! God knows, and has seen the tears I have already shed so often over the shameful servitude into which we have been led." A personal lament (the clear part of the page speaks of "Mein Patron"), with only this sentence put into cipher.
Declared deviation: this reading is outside the pre-registered test, which measured the other system (the 1647 homophonic key). It rests on the period key itself, unaltered, and on the sense of the whole sentence (no value adjusted).Key: key_0003.tsv, key_1647.tsv
05 Sources
- Landesarchiv Thüringen – Staatsarchiv Altenburg, Schönbergische Sammlung Nr. 85 (ThULB Jena, record, CC BY 3.0): images 0003 and 0837, and the letters of November–December 1647 with their decipherments of the time; the images are not reproduced here.
- Brice Dudout, pull request #349 and the target folder: the key sheet, the 1647 key, the tests and the reading.
The documentation, the key, the transcription, the reading and the tests are in targets/thumbshirn1647.
Cite this page
Brice Dudout and Daniel Bourdeau, “A postscript of the envoy Thumbshirn, 1648/49”, Cyphersolver, posted 9 November 2026, https://cyphersolver.com/thumbshirn1647.html.