the use of arabic and roman numerals in english archives

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The Use of Arabic and Roman Numerals in English Archives

Hilary Jenkinson

The Antiquaries Journal / Volume 6 / Issue 03 / July 1926, pp 263 275DOI: 10.1017/S0003581500056481, Published online: 08 January 2012

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0003581500056481

How to cite this article:Hilary Jenkinson (1926). The Use of Arabic and Roman Numerals in English Archives. The Antiquaries Journal, 6, pp 263275 doi:10.1017/S0003581500056481

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The Use of Arabic and Roman Numerals inEnglish Archives

By HILARY JENKINSON, M.A., F.S.A.

Introductory

THIS subject was not considered in any great detail in the workof Mr. Johnson and myself upon Court Hand1 because in themedieval period Arabic numerals do not appear to any consider-able extent in English Archives—indeed their appearance there atany date before the late fifteenth century may be taken as fairlystrong evidence of foreign influence— and concerning Romannumerals there was little to say. Moreover the subject had beenrecently dealt with by Dr. Hill.2 But in the period after 1500Arabic figures begin slowly to fight their way into EnglishArchives—i. e. into business writings; and since this (the Archive)class of documents is precisely that which was more or less closedto Dr. Hill it seems worth while to indicate in a preliminarysketch the types of document which may be of use to any studentinterested in further research along these lines; and to give theresults of some tentative examination of them by the presentwriter, even when these are negative. The questions of interestare—where and when do Arabic figures make their entry intoEnglish Archives ? how far are they affected by being used inconjunction with the special Set Hands which were such a featureof Archive writing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?3

how far do they retain any of the primitive forms ? and canthese be used at all as criteria for dating ?

1 Johnson, C , and Jenkinson, H., Court Hand Illustrated . . . : Clarendon Press,1 9 1 5 .

2 Hill, G. F., The Development of Arabic Numerals in Europe (reprint withadditions of a paper printed in Archaeotogid): Clarendon Press, 1915. Thisfurnishes an excellent bibliography of the subject, but three books published sincerequire mention—Barnard, F . P., The Casting Counter and the Counting Board,Smith, D . E . , History of Mathematics, vol. I I , . . . and Early English T e x tSociety (ed. Robert Steele) Extra Series 118, The Earliest Arithmetics in English.

3 There were seven which had definitely distinguished and known characteristics—the Text, the Bastard or Bastard Secretary, the Secretary and the Set Hands of theLaw Courts (which fall into two groups of large and small writings), the Chancery,the Pipe Office and the Office of the King's Remembrancer. The Lord Treasurer sRemembrancer s Office has also hands which are distinctive, but I do not includethese in the h>t.

264 T H E ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL

In examining series to find out what evidence they offered forthe development of the use of Arabic in England I have gonealways to the end of the sixteenth century, generally to the endof the first quarter of the seventeenth, and for certain purposes(especially for the matter of the numerals used in accounting)very considerably beyond this. The classes examined include allthe great series of Enrolled, Original and Declared Accounts amongthe Public Records. I have taken, in the case of these, specimensselected at regular intervals over periods of years ; and the samemethod has been applied to Ministers' Accounts. For Private Accountsother than manorial I have examined the Astwick, Catesby, Cely,Darrell, Greskam, Kendrick, Quarks, Reskymer, Stonor and VernonPapers at the Record Office (the amounts are not so large asthey sound) : for Entry Books and Registers the early Entry Booksamong the State Papers ; series of the Registers which began toreplace, or exist beside, the older rolls in the Exchequer of Receiptin the post-medieval period ; various sets of Registers (Decreesand Orders, Particulars for Leases, etc.) in the Augmentation Office :and for contemporary Indexes, Dockets and so forth the better-known classes of these in the Chancery, Kings Bench, Exchequer(K. R. and L. T. R.), Common Pleas and Signet Office. To thesemust be added a good many miscellaneous rolls and volumes.The results are not large in bulk but seem to justify certainconclusions : and one of these may be stated forthwith—Arabicfigures do not begin to be at all a common feature in EnglishArchives, public or private, before the second quarter of thesixteenth century. Even then their use cannot be called popularor regular save in a very few specific classes : in the vast majorityof places where numerals occur the adoption of the Arabic is veryslow and sporadic—until the eighteenth century (in some caseseven later) the Roman remains an alternative, if not the onlyform.

Methods of Accounting

Accounts are the natural places in which to look for figures,and it may be said at once that in England the principal varietiesof these which have survived, the public ones (including all thegreat series made or preserved at the Exchequer) and the privateones dealing with the administration of land or (but these survivein small quantities only) with that of great households, attainedfixed forms at a very early date * in the medieval period ; and

1 e.g. the Pipe Rolls in the n t h century, the Receipt and Issue Rolls early in the13th, the Wardrobe and Household Accounts in the 13th and 14th, and so forth.The great series of Enrolled Accounts are in origin only portions split off from the

USE OF NUMERALS IN ENGLISH ARCHIVES 265

that, convention acting as strongly here as elsewhere, these formslingered on outwardly unchanged for many centuries, and pre-served among other habits that of reckoning in Roman figures : l

even the revolutionary change2 which introduced the custom of* declaring' public accounts early in the sixteenth century alteredthe outward part of their form comparatively little ; and indeedold habits were so strong that we constantly find even new series3

instituted in the seventeenth century clinging to old forms ofaccounting and to Roman numeration.

System of Arithmetic

Ranged with convention in this case there is another influence.So long as no more arithmetic was required of the accountantthan the old methods of book-keeping demanded, the methods ofthe abacus? or counting-board, and of computation on the fingers5

were enough for him, and for this the Roman system of numeralsnot only sufficed but was in some ways actually preferable: thezero, which is the distinguishing mark of Algorism, was notneeded. While, therefore, we must imagine the medievalaccountant as, often, very expert in the manipulation of hiscounting-board, we must also imagine much of what we nowcall simple arithmetic, and the whole of our modern system ofreckoning with nine digits and a zero, forming in his perioda part of advanced mathematical education only. An interestingside-light on this is the fact that before 1500 only seven treatiseson Algorism in English are known,6 though there are plenty inLatin; commercial education had no need of them. To this wemay add that Robert Recorde, writing in 1543, refers to Arithmetikewith the penne (Algorism) and the same arte with counters on termsof equality : it is not till 1646 that we find a writer speaking ofany that can but cast with counters as ignorant people.7 It is also to

Pipe Rolls, and though they show certain differences of accounting form these arenot fundamental. The same may be said of the various long series of OriginalAccounts which will be found in the class of Exchequer (K.R.) Accounts, etc.

1 The Issue Books, for example, continued to use Roman numerals down to theirabolition in 1816, developing some curious forms, and the Receipt Books onlyabandoned them a few years previously.

2 For an account of these see Giuseppi, M.S., Guide to the Public Records (1914),vol. I, p. 118, and the authorities there cited.

3 To take only one example, the Creditors' Boohs of the Lord Steward's Depart-ment, in the time of Charles II .

4 See E.E.T.S., op. cit., Introduction.5 Hid., p. 66, reprinting Robert Recorde, The Ground of Artes . . ., 1543.6 To the Editor of E.E.T.S., op. cit., p. v.7 Smith, op. cit., p. 188.


be observed that of all our English Writing-Masters Cocker(after 1660) is the first to include anything like a plate of Arabicfigures in any of his copy-books :* they were not part of finewriting.

Appearance of Arabic Figures in English Archives

These figures were comparatively common abroad long beforethey became so in England, and accordingly they may be lookedfor in such Merchants' Accounts as have survived ; and our earliestexamples (pi. xxxvi, a and b) come from the Cely Papers, datingfrom the last quarter of the fifteenth century : even here, however,they are only marginalia. Similar notes—rough calculations bythe scribe or memoranda of an auditor-—-begin to appear in publicand other accounts about the same time and early in the followingcentury.

The Foliation of Registers and Account Books, which from thethe time of Henry VIII begins to be frequent or even general, isa more fruitful field ; for in the medieval period foliation of thistype of book was by no means the rule, so that convention is notstrong. Here, however, and in another field—the Numbering ofitems on rolls, such as the great Chancery Series—we often finddifficulty in dating : for many of these numerations are thework of persons using the Records a century later. In ourplate xxxvi, a and b are marginalia and c, e, and f foliations.In these cases I was satisfied that they were contemporarywith the text; and moreover, as all were to show archaic forms,my point would be only the better proved if they were later ;but one is not always so fortunate. Perhaps our best sourcebefore the end of the sixteenth century is that of Dates appear-ing in the actual text of Archives : it is a post-medieval fashionto use the year date of the Christian era and consequently thisappears in Arabic figures while the day date continues tofigure in Roman (pi. xxxvi, g). One or two entirely newclasses of public Archives—notably the Indexes, Dockets andAlphabets which now begin to appear with some frequency andthe Depositions in Chancery cases—are also useful ; the classlast named frequently has the questions put to Deponents num-bered in Arabic. Lists of such ' articles' are not, of course,unknown in the medieval period :2 but were not made sofrequently as to establish a convention.

1 They occur in the titles of his Multum in Parvo and Magnum in Parvo:Shelley (c. 17 10) has fine plates in two of his books : and they appear in Bickham'swork about the same time.

2 See, for a random example, those in Chancery Miscellanea 6/4, dated c. 1400.In this case the numerals are, of course, Roman.

T H E ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL Vol. VI, pi. XXXVI

t ^ ft)0) O)

•3-IAf

(0

15?

37

0) ( / )

{a) and (^) from Chancery Miscellanea, 37/ i°Cr. 14Q0V

(c) from T. R. Books, 8 (c. 1500).

(rf) from Chancery, Parliament Roll, 147 (1539).

References and Dates.

(<) from X. ^ . , j /«'jf. Books, 190 (c. 1550).

( / ) from St. John's Coll., Cambridge, Statutes

(IS3°-I545)-

(^) from Privy Council Registers, 3, f. 100.

T H E ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL Vol. VI, pi. XXXVII

{a) from State Papers, Henry VIII, 101, f. 193 {c. 1540).

\ \ \ \ XVfrom State Papers Domestic, Supplementary, 59, ii, f. 232.

: n> •*

(c) from Contemporary Index to K.B., Doggett Rolls (1575)-

USE OF N U M E R A L S IN ENGLISH ARCHIVES 267

It is not till the Italian method of Book-keeping by DoubleEntry begins to become popular in England — and the firstknown book orr the subject in our language was published in1543 z—that Arabic figures really come by their own : and evenin Ledgers and Journals kept by the new methods2 accountants willnot infrequently relapse into Roman numerals for minor calcula-tions or use such a mixture of two styles as is seen in pi. xxxvi, b.Elsewhere, especially in local accounts and other documents, theArabic numerals after they have become well known, long continueto be used indifferently along with the Roman or mixed in vary-ing proportions with them ;3 just as the two handwritings of theperiod—the old Secretary and the new Italic—were apparentlyboth taught to all ordinary students who then proceeded to mixthem in such manner and proportion as pleased themselves.4

The Forms of Figures

The really primitive forms do not appear in English Archives,but we have survivals of something unlike the modern in thecase of almost every figure. Also it is some time before we geta final settlement : when this came it was probably induced largelyby the example of printing types—we have seen that the Writing-Masters apparently paid little attention to figures, and Arithmetic

5

FIG. 1.

Books did not often indulge in engraved plates. Even in thesecond quarter of the sixteenth century writers frequently jumbledold forms and new of the Arabic in proportions of their own : notefor example in the example annexed5 the use of two different kindsof 4 side by side : but once the type-founder's models hadbecome familiar to them they strayed very little. Though the

1 Mellis, John, A Brief Instruction and Maner how to keepe Bookes of Accompts. . . , 1588 : Mellis says this had been printed by Hugh Oldcastle in I J43.

2 Survivals of a date before 1600 are rare, and those that we have are all ofprivate origin. The earliest books kept after the new method by a Public Depart-ment, so far as I know, are of the late seventeenth century.

3 For a good example of such mixture see the List of Fines in a Court Roll{Court Rolls i<?5/8) of the reign of Charles I in the Public Record Office.

4 It took two centuries for the Italic to come anywhere near ousting theSecretary decisively.

5 From the contemporary foliation to Chancery, Entry Book of Decrees andOrders 1, of the year IJ45-


introduction of Arabic figures and of the Italic hands into Englandcoincided in point of time there was probably little more relationbetween them than between Italic Writing and Italian Book-keeping ; most of our early examples of the last named being inSecretary hands. See, however, some remarks below about the(later) current developments.

Before going on to describe individual figures we may notethat in general they follow the conventions of ' old face ' type (inwhich this article is printed) in the matter of projection abovethe line (6 and 8) or below it (3, 4, 5, 7 and 9). We should alsonote, here as in more formal writings,1 the tendency of the figuresto follow the stroke-production of any letter whose form theyresemble ; and be prepared for purely local forms.

Individual Figures

The more primitive form of this has a diagonal line0 through it as in pi. xxxvi, a, and fig. 11 below. Though this

is disappearing in the first quarter of the sixteenth century(pi. xxxvi, d) it is by no means defunct so late as 1550 (pi, xxxvi, e).Apart from this the figure is made like letter 0 : in one or twomovements of the pen according to the extent of currency in thehand.

The only thing to notice is the resemblance to letter i1 (pi. xxxvi, b). A dot is not certainly a part of the figure

in this case but it occurs undoubtedly in a late and verycurrent foliation.2 When not dotted this form, with its head

FIG. 1.

to the left and foot to the right, may easily be confused with 2,as in the 0018 of fig. 8 below.

Here again there is little to notice though some survival2, of an earlier form is seen in the 32 of pi. xxxvi,/. It is

to be observed that the figure is rather generally made intwo distinct strokes, so as to give a very definite foot: note, e.g.,the 227 in pi. xxxvn, b. The downward turn of the right endof the foot appears to have revived to some extent in the seven-teenth century, but never enough to make this figure confusablewith 3 as it was in earlier forms.

1 Cp. a note by Mr. W. J. Hemp in Archaeologia Cambrensis, 6th ser., 18, 320.2 From Stale Papers Foreign, Entry Book 163, of about 1580.


This figure retains in current hands the twist of the tail'I to the right much longer than Dr. Hill's plates might

suggest. Note for example those in pis. xxxvi,/, and xxxvn,a and c. In figs. 9 and 11 below another less common form isseen in which the tail is a vertical line, sometimes with no signof a turn either to right or left. On the whole, however, thisfigure naturally follows as a rule the contemporary forms ofletter / .

The disappearance of the old form, consisting of twoA curved diagonals interlocked at the top is not rapid and

this form may appear side by side with the modern one, aswe have seen. Some transition between them may be seen in the44 and 45 of pi. xxxvi, c. The modern form is usually made intwo actions of the pen—a vertical stroke first and then an angle,but a variant of this appears in pi. xxxvi, e and g. In the mostformal writing of this figure a thickening of the final horizontalstroke is not uncommon (pi. xxxvi, d, and fig. 6 below).

The most primitive form of this which appears inC Archives is that resembling a letter h (pi. xxxvi, b and c, and

fig. 11 below) : traces of this appear quite late (as in fig. 2above) and a curious exaggeration of it is seen in fig. 9, and stillmore in fig. 3 below. A more usual form is the single stroke,curving diagonally first to the left and then to the right, seen in anumber of our examples, notably pi. xxxvn, a. The final develop-ment by which an angle is re-introduced in the middle of thiscurve and an extra, more or less horizontal, stroke added at thetop as in pi, xxxvn, c, does not appear regularly in current hands tilllate in the sixteenth century, though it was known quite early(see pi. xxxvi, d). The contrast between current and formalwriting of this figure is dealt with below.

FIG. 3.

The exaggerated h form just mentioned (fig. 3) is taken froma Parish Register of 1572 :' lam told2 that it occurs in other localdocuments of the same date and neighbourhood and on a monu-mental inscription. Another case of local peculiarities is men-tioned below, and no doubt a considerable number, dating from aperiod when the Arabic figures were still something of a novelty,might be collected in similar places.

1 Stanton near Broadway (Worcestershire).2 By Mr. E. A. B. Barnard to whom I am indebted for this example.

270 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL

The primitive form of this, made generally in threeO actions of the pen, with a flat top added after the rest of the

letter (pi. xxxvi, b and c, and fig. 11 below) suggests a con-temporary capital G in the non-Italic hands. It is rarer than someof the other early forms in English Archives; but is seen, in a cur-rent form made in one action from the bottom, in pi. xxxvu, a,well on in the sixteenth century. The form lined through like azero, seen'in pi. xxxvi,/1 appears to be a purely local peculiarity.

In its more modern form 6 is made formally intwo strokes, currently in one. In the latter case it /tf^^is made with the stroke action of the letter b as a FIG. 4.rule, and may even be confused with it : but occa-sionally it is made like the sigma form of s, starting with the bow,as in the annexed example.2

The primitive form of this, like a capital Greek lambda7 A, is one of the earliest to disappear. An example appears

in pi. xxxvi, a, but it seems to be rare after 1500. Some-thing approaching an intermediate form is seen in pi. xxxvu, a.

Two local idiosyncrasies are seen in pi. xxxvi, e and/,O both founded probably on memories of the small letter g

in old-fashioned hands. Apart from such occasionalpeculiarities the figure appears from the first in Archives insomething very like its modern form ; yet very often (as wegenerally make it) in one action, beginning in the centre andtravelling first down and left, then right and up. A markedpeculiarity, however, is a strong tendency to take this figurebelow the line instead of above, as in the printed ' old face' 8(see, e. g., pi. xxxvu, a and c, and fig. 11 below). A curious latedevelopment by which the figure is dropped, asit were, over on to its side (as in fig. 8 below), is < 2 ty 1,(0common in the seventeenth century and persists FIG. 5.well into the eighteenth. This example is by nomeans an exaggerated one; but in some cases, as in the annexedfigure,3 the 8 is liable to confusion with either o or 9.

There is little to be said about this figure, which isQ habitually made in two actions and resembles closely the

printed form, save that in certain hands the tail tends tobecome exaggerated as in pi. xxxvi, e, and that in common with5 and 6 it lends itself particularly to current connexions withother letters : as appears in pi. xxxvi, g; written currently itnaturally tends to follow the contemporary form of letter g.

1 I have to thank the Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, and Mr. F. P. Whitefor enabling me to secure this illustration. 2 Dy. of Lane, Depositions, 51/59.

3 From Admiralty, Viet. Dept., Ace. 48, dated 6


Style and Currency

From the first, though they use them sparingly, the writersof the Set Hands show not only an ability but a tendency to adaptthe Arabic numerals to their own style ; probably because theyare using a particular pen and a particular hold of it and do notchange these :z but they do not appreciably modify the forms.Thus the writer whose work is seen in pi. xxxvi, c, is using inhis text the typical small, splayed set hand of the late fifteenth-century, and the connexion is obvious: again our pi. xxxvi, d>is an undoubted part of the remarkable table of contents prefixedto a Parliament Roll* and the style of the figures suits admirably

FIG. 6. FIG. 7-

with the Chancery Set Hand of the Roll; as appears even morein the larger individual figures by the same hand of which weshow two in fig. 6. A similar remark might be made inthe case of pi. xxxvn, a and b; the latter being a piece of lateBastard writing from a private Account:3 and even the verymodern figures of pi. xxxvn, c, are made to suit the small Legalhand used for the Index from which they are taken. Thisadaptation of figures to particular hands (cf. pi. xxxvn, F) natu-rally reached the writer long before it reached the Type-founders.The printer can without effort combine two unsuitable styles oftype (ordinary Arabic numerals, for example, with black letter)and does so. The writer does it less often, not because his tasteis better but because he does not want the trouble of altering histechnique.

Current Developments by which one figure is tied to anotheroccur principally in those late Secretary hands (compare pi. xxxvi, g)which are influenced by, if not mixed with, the Italic. Both theexamples here given are taken from Privy Council Registers:4 and inthe later use the formal and informal writings of the date, fig. 7,taken from adjacent pages in the same hand, will be noticed ;together with the underlining. These highly current figures arethose in which the influence of the Italic hand was strongest and

1 Down to the early eighteenth century the Writing Masters were still recom-mending a differently cut pen and a different hold for the Secretary and other old-fashioned hands and for the Italic.

2 C. Parl. Roll, 147, in which it is a unique feature.3 Plate xxxvi, / i s also from a book written in a rough Bastard, but not, I think,

by the same hand. 4 P.C. 2/3 and P.C. z/6.


it is possible that the underlining of the date (a common feature)is a relic of the symbol used for indicating Italic to the Printer.

Our remaining figure I in this section illustrates the same Italic

FIG. 8.

style, the currency, the peculiar 8 already noticed and anotherseventeenth-century habit—that of inserting zeros before figuresto make any mistake of denomination impossible.

Fractions

With one exception these show no difference from ordinaryform in the figures: there is a not very common, but persistent,use of a special 2 in the fraction •§, probably in order to save space

FIG. 9.

vertically. Our example2 dates from about 1555, but the samehas been noted much later.3

A curiosity of accounting must be noted here which led tosome trouble in the matter of fractions. This was the habit(provided for in the shape of extra columns by John Mellis4) ofreckoning amounts to halves and quarters of a farthing andoccasionally even to other fractions of that coin.5 We have afairly regular series of examples of this from the medieval periodonwards.6 There were no coins or tokens7 corresponding to anyof these fractions, and though it is possible that the farthing wasactually cut up, it is not, I think, probable. It is true that we haverecord not of valuations but of actual payments8 prescribed to be

1 From E. 121/4/8, a Survey of Royal Lands in 1650.2 From E. 40J/241 (a register of the Exchequer of Receipt), f. 31, 32.3 In T. 70/17, a record of the African Company of 1691.4 Op. cit. Mellis distinguishes these columns by the letters q", q, and c : but

I have not seen these symbols employed elsewhere. The q" is presumably aderivative of qa.

5 Dy. of Lancaster, Knights' Fees, 1/11 f. 90 tercia pars quadrantis.6 I am indebted to Professor Baldwin for calling my attention to a number of

these: e. g. in Ministers Accounts, 615/9837 of 43, 44 Edward I I I , ibid. 732/12033(6, 7 Henry VI) and ibid. 403/6074 (21, 22 Edward IV).

7 As I am informed by Dr. G. F . Hill.8 I n E. I 2 1 / 3 / 4 in a Certificate of the Sale of Crown Lands, f. \6%o: ' T h e

one Moyetie thereof, being One hundred Nynetie Nyne poundes two shillings andthree pense halfe peny three quarters of a farthing, is to be payd in ready money . . . '


made in such sums, but it is not improbable that the difficulty wasgot over by carrying down inconvenient fractions as arrears to thefollowing year. The difficulties of expression found by accoun-tants may be illustrated from the work of one {temp. Henry VIII)

(b) FIG. IO. (d)

who uses iij pars q\uadrantis~\ and several other methods of writingin these fractions ' instead of expressing them in figures : anothermethod, perhaps more usual, is to place two fractions side byside ; \ ~ d, for example, standing for f of a penny.2 "We mightperhaps add here, as taken from the same source, though not

1 British Museum, Additional MSS. 32469. I am indebted for this and anumber of other examples to Mr. S. J. Madge, F.S.A.

2 A number of examples will be found in Augmentation Office, Miscellaneous Books,173 and 174.

VOL. VI U

274 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL

germane to this subject, a seventeenth-century use of the Arabicfigure in abbreviation for the months—7ber and 8ber.

The Form of Roman Numerals

This follows, of course, the ordinary development of theletters, with which we must not here try to deal: but two pointsmay be noticed.

First there is the unimportant but highly curious developmentin one or two Courts of a special Roman numeration for themembranes of their Rolls, which in its later stages is practicallyunreadable. Our illustration1 (fig. 10) shows the number 147 asit was written in the years 1421, 1436, and 1466 and finally thenumber 47 as it appears in 1583 : it does not show the worstthat might be selected and is only half the size of the original.

Secondly we have to note the difficulty which the users ofRoman numerals faced when sums of money grew from theirmedieval smallness to six or even seven figures of pounds. Inthe sale of Crown Lands, for example, under the Commonwealthtotals of over a million had to be expressed and the writers hadevidently no tradition of the Roman method: accordingly we getsuch expressions as

it C M C K s' S

M iiij xxiij vij x xviij iijfor the sum of ,£1,423,710 : 18 : 3 /

Reckoning in Dots

We need not dwell on the two known systems of this reproduc-tion of the Abacus on paper for they have been dealt with else-where :3 but may note that it survives well into the seventeenthcentury in the form of Auditor's marginalia to accounts and soforth. It is not as a rule difficult to decipher if the studentremembers that he must begin on the right, and that in everycolumn there are potentially three rows of dots to enablethe user to score up to ten (in the case of pence twelve)and twenty. Recently noted examples,4 however, gave sometrouble by veering suddenly, as it appeared, from a horizontal

1 From Common Pleas, Plea Rolls, 6-$j, 701 and 817 and Recovery Roll, 1.2 From Exchequer, L.T.R., Declared Accounts, 603 ; dated 1649.3 Hughes, A., Crump, C. G., and Johnson, C , edition of the Dialogus de

Scaccario (Oxford, 1902), p. 39; citing Robert Recorde, Ground of Artes.4 From E. 403/1701 (an Issue Book of the Exchequer of Receipt) under date

10 May, 1605, etc.


to a vertical system in the hundred column throughout. Oneamount (,£2,450 : 3 : 7) read thus,

/ • / / • / / . /I ''I I" I II

the third column from the left being scores.

Conclusion

We may perhaps conclude by emphasizing a difficulty statedearlier, that some of our best examples of Arabic numerals inArchives cannot be dated with any accuracy; we can only saythat they probably are, or more often that they certainly are not,by the hand that wrote the text. Thus the excellent set here

FIG. I i .

shown is from the fourteenth-century Cartulary of St. Augustine'sCanterbury at the Public Record Office.1 It is certainly not bythe hand that wrote the manuscript; but all that we can say isthat it might be of the fourteenth and cannot be later than thefifteenth century. Now, not infrequently points of historicalcriticism of considerable importance may turn upon the dateof a numeration—this is notably the case, for example, in someof the sixteenth-century Chancery Enrolments : and althoughany ascription of date based on character of handwriting isdangerous, it is not without possibilities of usefulness. Ourknowledge here is at present unnecessarily weak: but the onlything that can improve our position is the accumulation of thegreatest possible number of accurately-dated examples to act ascriteria. The peculiarities of early form in Arabic numerals arenot numerous or difficult—in many cases they can even be quiteeasily and faithfully described without the aid of facsimiles: andit is much to be hoped that more attention may be given to thismatter than has been done in the past by editors of fifteenth- andsixteenth-century archives.

1 Exchequer, K.R., Miscellaneous Books, Series I, 27.

U 2

the use of arabic and roman numerals in english archives

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