linis concedere. Et hoc manifestum
est in nobem figuris, quibus designant unumquemque gradum cuiuslibet
gradus. Quarum hec sunt forma." The nine [.g]ob[=a]r characters follow.
Some of the abacus forms[557] previously given are doubtless also of the
tenth century. The earliest Arabic documents containing the numerals are
two manuscripts of 874 and 888 A.D.[558] They appear about a century later
in a work[559] written at Shiraz in 970 A.D. There is also an early trace
of their use on a pillar recently discovered in a church apparently
destroyed as early as the tenth century, not far from the Jeremias
Monastery, in Egypt. {139} A graffito in Arabic on this pillar has the date
349 A.H., which corresponds to 961 A.D.[560] For the dating of Latin
documents the Arabic forms were used as early as the thirteenth
century.[561]

On the early use of these numerals in Europe the only scientific study
worthy the name is that made by Mr. G. F. Hill of the British Museum.[562]
From his investigations it appears that the earliest occurrence of a date
in these numerals on a coin is found in the reign of Roger of Sicily in
1138.[563] Until recently it was thought that the earliest such date was
1217 A.D. for an Arabic piece and 1388 for a Turkish one.[564] Most of the
seals and medals containing dates that were at one time thought to be very
early have been shown by Mr. Hill to be of relatively late workmanship.
There are, however, in European manuscripts, numerous instances of the use
of these numerals before the twelfth century. Besides the example in the
Codex Vigilanus, another of the tenth century has been found in the St.
Gall MS. now in the University Library at Zuerich, the forms differing
materially from those in the Spanish codex.

The third specimen in point of time in Mr. Hill's list is from a Vatican
MS. of 1077. The fourth and fifth specimens are from the Erlangen MS. of
Boethius, of the same {140} (eleventh) century, and the sixth and seventh
are also from an eleventh-century MS. of Boethius at Chartres. These and
other early forms are given by Mr. Hill in this table, which is reproduced
with his kind permission.

EARLIEST MANUSCRIPT FORMS

[Illustration]

This is one of more than fifty tables given in Mr. Hill's valuable paper,
and to this monograph students {141} are referred for details as to the
development of number-forms in Europe from the tenth to the sixteenth
century. It is of interest to add that he has found