Adding Stories to the Equation. Exploring the Narrative Potential of Late Medieval and Early Modern Reckoning Books

Abstract

Reckoning books are an important but mostly overlooked source for the narration of knowledge. They grow especially important on the verge of the early modern period, where emerging European long-distance trade connections and the rise of the merchant class result in an unprecedented thirst for mathematical knowledge. Reckoning books now appear all over the continent, trying to tell the story of mathematics in short didactic examples. This article therefore aims to look at the reckoning books from a philological, narratological perspective and to grasp the narrative transfer of knowledge in the short form of the reckoning example. It is shown that these very brief examples are effective because they evoke so-called proto-narratives in just a few words and use narration as a potent tool of knowledge transfer.