Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/180

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134

Examination of an Inscription

By the several persons who engaged in the controversy it was agreed that the Arabic figures were first used in this country in agronomical tables and other mathematical writings; and, says Dr. Wallis, it was by little and little they came into common use, and common practice^[1]; but, as already observed, he fixes this common use to the thirteenth century, though it is undeniable there is a want of evidence to ascertain this practice either in the two first rules of arithmetic, or in specifying dates and other particulars that required numeration. Had a country mechanic in the tenth century been in the habit of noting the year of building a tower or a gate, it is scarcely credible that these figures so applied should not have been found in some part of every manuscript that recorded the foundation and endowment of a monastery. And if, as the lines cited from Chaucer's Dreme may import, these figures then newe, were used in addition and substraction towards the end of

as well as in Bede's books, de computo, might be designed in numeral letters, and so in one copy I find it to be. But in others, the numbers are designed by the numeral figures, and (these appearing otherwise to have been in use at that time) we may as well think, they were so used in this, yet so as that the numeral letters were in use also, as even to this day they are. Ibid. p. 11, 12.

↑ Ibid. p. 9. "As to the time when these numeral figures began first to be in use amongst us, Vossius tells us that they have not been in use above 350 years, at least not 400 years at the utmost—i. e. they were not in use till the year 1300, or at farthest before 1250. But I take them to be somewhat more ancient than so, not in common use, but at least in agronomical tables, which we transcribed from the Moors or Arabs, and afterwards by degrees came into common use, till at length they became generally used in all arithmetical computations, as being much more convenient for that, than otherways of designing numbers."——"Upon the whole matter, therefore, I judge that about the middle of the eleventh century, or between the year of our Lord 1000 and 1100, these figures came into use amongst us in Europe, together with other Arabic learning, first on the account of astronomical tables and other mathematical books, and then by little and little into common practice." Ibid. p. 13, 14.

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[1] Ibid. p. 9. "As to the time when these numeral figures began first to be in use amongst us, Vossius tells us that they have not been in use above 350 years, at least not 400 years at the utmost—i. e. they were not in use till the year 1300, or at farthest before 1250. But I take them to be somewhat more ancient than so, not in common use, but at least in agronomical tables, which we transcribed from the Moors or Arabs, and afterwards by degrees came into common use, till at length they became generally used in all arithmetical computations, as being much more convenient for that, than otherways of designing numbers."——"Upon the whole matter, therefore, I judge that about the middle of the eleventh century, or between the year of our Lord 1000 and 1100, these figures came into use amongst us in Europe, together with other Arabic learning, first on the account of astronomical tables and other mathematical books, and then by little and little into common practice." Ibid. p. 13, 14.

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