By the numbers : numeracy, religion, and the quantitative transformation of early modern England / Jessica Marie Otis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Otis, Jessica Marie, author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Numeracy--England--History--To 1500.

Numeracy.

Numeration, Arabic--England--History.

Numeration, Arabic.

Numeracy--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (0 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2024.

Summary:

During the 16 & 17th centuries, English numerical practices underwent a complex transformation with wide-ranging impacts on English society. At the beginning of the early modern period, English men & women believed that God had made humans universally numerate, although numbers were not central to their everyday lives. Over the next two centuries, rising literacy rates & the increasing availability of printed books revolutionized modes of arithmetical practice & education. Ordinary English people began to use numbers & quantification to explain abstract phenomena as diverse as the relativity of time, the probability of chance events, & the constitution of human populations. These changes reflected their participation in broader early modern European cultural & intellectual developments such as the Reformation & the Scientific Revolution.

Contents:

Cover

By the Numbers

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

A Note on Style, Dating, Money, and References

Introduction-"Number, Weight and Measure": Numeracy in Early Modern England

1. "The Dyuers Wittes of Man": The Multiplicity and Materiality of Numbers

2. "Finding Out False Reckonings": Trust and the Function of Numbers

3. "Set Them To the Cyphering Schoole": Reading, Writing, and Arithmetical Education

4. "According To Our Computation Here": Quantifying Time

5. "It is Oddes of Many To One": Quantifying Chance and Risk

6. "Davids Arithmetick": Quantifying the People

Epilogue-"Heau'ns Great Arithmetician": Living in a Numerical World

Appendix: Arithmetic Textbook Marginalia by First Author and Holding Library

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2024.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on November 15, 2023).

Other Format:

Print version: Otis, Jessica Marie By the Numbers

ISBN:

0-19-760881-7

0-19-760879-5

OCLC:

1404059394