The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c11.91

c11.91

Now it is a fact that neither the letters nor this history makes any statement as to Gerbert's contact with the Saracens. The letters do not speak of the Moors, of the Arab numerals, nor of Cordova. Spain is not referred to by that name, and only one Spanish scholar is mentioned. In one of his letters he speaks of Joseph Ispanus,⁴ or Joseph Sapiens, but who this Joseph the Wise of Spain may have been we do not know. Possibly it was he who contributed the morsel of knowledge so imperfectly assimilated by the young French monk.¹ Within a few years after Gerbert's visit two young Spanish monks of lesser fame, and doubtless with not that keen interest in mathematical matters which Gerbert had, regarded the apparently slight knowledge which they had of the Hindu numeral forms as worthy of somewhat permanent record² in manuscripts which they were transcribing. The fact that such knowledge had penetrated to their modest cloisters in northern Spain — the one Albelda or Albaida — indicates that it was rather widely diffused.