B chapter.indd - Charles Babbage Institute - University of Minnesota

Erwin Tomash Library
Bede Venerabilis Bede Venerabilis
Bede documented the medieval form of hand gestures
known as finger numerals, and his is the first printed
record we have of them. Bede’s description is short and
contains no diagrams. It simply lists the finger positions
used to represent integers from 1–9,999 and adds a very
short remark on the Greek alphabetic number system.
The work is bound with different works by Bede and
others (see the title page).
For a succinct discussion of Bede finger reckoning, see
Sachiko Kusukawa, A manual computer for reckoning
time, In Claire Richter Sherman, Writing on hands.
Memory and knowledge in early modern Europe.
University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2000, pp. 28–
34.
Illustrations available:
Title page of the entire volume
Title page of the computo
Four pages of text of the computo (in three images)
Colophon
B 122
Bede Venerabilis (672/3–735)
De natura rerum et temporum rationes. Libri duo. Nunc
recens inventi, & in lucem editi.
Year: 1529
Place: Basel
Publisher: Henricus Petrus
Edition: 1st (two texts together)
Language: Latin
Figures: 16 plates
Computo title page, B 121
Binding: later quarter vellum heavy paper boards
Pagination: ff. [16], 74
Collation: å 6 ß 6 ð 4 a–l 6 m 8
Size: 279x194 mm
Reference: Smi Rara, p. 159; Sart Vol. I, pp. 510–11; DSB I,
pp. 564–66; Smi HM II, p. 200; Zin GBAL, #1374
This volume, like the 1525 work mentioned above,
is composed of a number of different works. Bede’s
De computu digitorum is the same, very short, work
previously described. The one obvious difference is that
a more complete list of the Greek alphabetic number
symbols is given.
Illustrations available:
Main title page
Title page of Bede’s De natura rerum
Complete text (in two images) of Computu digitorum
Colophon
B 123
Bede Venerabilis (672/3–735)
Bede first page, B 122
Colophon, B 122
Opuscula cumplura de temporum ratione diligenter
castigata: atque illustrata veteribus quibusdam
annotationibus una cum scholiis in obscuriores aliquot
locos, authore Johanne Noviomago.
125