Reckonings by Stephen Chrisomalis;

Author:Stephen Chrisomalis;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: numerals; number systems; numeral systems; numerical notation; numbers; anthropology; linguistics; Roman numerals; Arabic numerals; Hindu-Arabic numerals; writing systems; literacy; numeracy; cognitive science; linguistic anthropology; cognitive anthropology; mathematics; cognitive archaeology; numerical cognition; philology; language; numeration; place value; zero; history of mathematics; cultural evolution; cross-cultural research; medieval history; history of science; arithmetic; abacus; tally marks; tallying; number words; epigraphy; historical anthropology; classics; paleography; cultural transmission; comparativism; macrohistory; universalism
Publisher: MIT Press

Table 4.1

Roman numerals and Western numerals in early English printed books, 1470–1534

Feature

Roman

Western

Colophon

25

21

Title page

  0

  6

Foliation

26

17

Table of contents

  7

  7

Marginal notes

  2

  6

Chapter headings

11

  2

Signature marks

29

14

Western numerals were rare in England before 1530, in both manuscripts and printed texts (Jenkinson 1926). William Caxton briefly experimented with Western numerals in six of his works printed at Westminster between 1481 and 1483 (Blades 1882: 47). However, Caxton used Western numerals only for signature marks: organizational features used by bookbinders to ensure that pages are placed in the correct order, but not really intended for the eventual reader at all. He printed all the other organizational features, such as chapter headings, in Roman numerals. This suggests that while he expected (or knew) that his bookbinders were familiar with the new system, it was still novel enough to his readership that he did not employ them in features intended for them. Figure 4.5 shows a leaf from Caxton’s Reynard of 1481 (STC 20919) containing the first Western numeral ever printed in an English book (the signature mark “a2,” bottom right), alongside the chapter headings in the table, numbered in Roman numerals. Caxton’s experiment was short-lived; from 1484 onward, he reverted to Roman numerals for signature marks and used no Western numerals anywhere else. Indeed, these were the only Western numerals in English incunabula.

Figure 4.5

Leaf from Caxton’s Reynard of 1481—with "a2," bottom right, the first printed Western numeral in an English book (STC 20919)

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