, interested
in astrology,[444] although this was merely the astronomy of that time and
was such a science as any learned man would wish to know, even as to-day we
wish to be reasonably familiar with physics and chemistry.

That Gerbert and his pupils knew the [.g]ob[=a]r numerals is a fact no
longer open to controversy.[445] Bernelinus and Richer[446] call them by
the well-known name of {113} "caracteres," a word used by Radulph of Laon
in the same sense a century later.[447] It is probable that Gerbert was the
first to describe these [.g]ob[=a]r numerals in any scientific way in
Christian Europe, but without the zero. If he knew the latter he certainly
did not understand its use.[448]

The question still to be settled is as to where he found these numerals.
That he did not bring them from Spain is the opinion of a number of careful
investigators.[449] This is thought to be the more probable because most of
the men who made Spain famous for learning lived after Gerbert was there.
Such were Ibn S[=i]n[=a] (Avicenna) who lived at the beginning, and Gerber
of Seville who flourished in the middle, of the eleventh century, and
Ab[=u] Roshd (Averroes) who lived at the end of the twelfth.[450] Others
hold that his proximity to {114} the Arabs for three years makes it
probable that he assimilated some of their learning, in spite of the fact
that the lines between Christian and Moor at that time were sharply
drawn.[451] Writers fail, however, to recognize that a commercial numeral
system would have been more likely to be made known by merchants than by
scholars. The itinerant peddler knew no forbidden pale in Spain, any more
than he has known one in other lands. If the [.g]ob[=a]r numerals were used
for marking wares or keeping simple accounts, it was he who would have
known them, and who would have been the one rather than any Arab scholar to
bring them to the inquiring mind of the young French monk. The facts that
Gerbert knew them only imperfectly, that he used them solely for
calculations, and that the forms are evidently like the Spanish
[.g]ob[=a]r, make it all the more probable that it was through the small
tradesman of the Moors that this versatile scholar derived his knowledge.
Moreover the part of the geometry bearing his name, and that seems
unquestionably his, shows the Arab influence, proving that he at least came
into contact with the transplanted Oriental learning, even though
imperfectly.[452] There was also the