A HISTORY OF MATHEMATICAL NOTATIONS
35
56. In certain sixteenth-century Portuguese manuscripts on navigation one finds the small letter b used for 5, and the capital letter R for 40. Thus, xbiij stands for 18, Ri ij for 43.[1]
Fig. 15.—Degenerate forms of Roman numerals in English archives (Common Pleas, Plea Rolls, 637, 701, and 817; also Recovery Roll 1). (Reduced.)
A curious development found in the archives of one or two English courts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries[2] was a special Roman
