This is the first comprehensive study of an ingenious
number-notation from the Middle Ages that was devised by monks and
mainly used in monasteries. A simple notation for representing any
number up to 99 by a single cipher, somehow related to an ancient
Greek shorthand, first appeared in early-13th-century England,
brought from Athens by an English monk. A second, more useful
version, due to Cistercian monks, is first attested in the late
13th century...
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