The decline and fall of the Roman numerals in the early English printing tradition

The transition from the Roman numerals to the Arabic / Hindu-Arabic / Western numerals 0123456789 in early modern Europe is generally told as a teleological, triumphalist account of technological progress. The introduction of movable-type printing in Europe starting in the mid-fifteenth century is rightly seen as a tipping point - the spread of printing did indeed encourage the spread of the new numerals. Following Elizabeth Eisenstein and others, the printing press was indeed an agent of change. But what sort of agent was it? An analysis of early English printed books from 1470 to 1530 shows that the first decades of the printing tradition was one in which there was numerical innovation, but not in the ways that we might think. Rather the new notation providing organizational conveniences for readers (e.g., through numbered lists, indices, pagination, etc.), it was often used haphazardly and inconsistently in incunabula and thereafter. Early printers were often quite unsure how best to use the new numerals, which, unlike Roman numerals, required new material affordances such as numerals in each font. Until the mid-sixteenth century, with the development and dissemination of printed arithmetic texts, familiarity with Western numerals was too sporadic to warrant their widespread use. Paradoxically, only once the Western numerals had achieved a degree of currency in the early modern literate sphere could their replacement of the Roman numerals proceed apace. The qualities that we now value in the notation - compactness, infinite extension, and arithmetical utility - are not those motivating the transition away from Roman numerals. Printers were as much responsive to the desires and interests of the newly literate middle class as they were innovative leaders.