Resumen de Hindu-Arabic Numerals in Public and Private Accounts of The Southern Low Countries (1300-1800)

Erik Aerts

• Recent scholarship has connected the advance of Hindu-Arabic numerals in European commercial practices with the spread of human capital and the social transmission of knowledge. More- over, it has been convincingly argued that a direct link existed be- tween the new numerals, the commercial revolution of the thirteenth century and the late medieval and early modern “little divergence” between Europe and the North Sea area (mainly Eng- land and the Low Countries). 1 However, little is actually known about the diffusion of Hindu-Arabic numerals in the accounts of either the public administrations or private companies in the latter region