Abstract
There were 16 printings of the Grounde of Artes in Tudor times so there is no doubt that it was widely read. Recognition of sources was not a feature of published works at that time, but debts to Record’s arithmetic were acknowledged by many authors of practical mathematical texts during that period. Probate inventories show that it had readers in the Universities, although never a recommended book: Tunstall’s Latin text was preferred. Recorde’s version of Euclid was reprinted only once. It was given to Edward VI by his tutor. Publication of the Whetstone of Witte was similarly limited, but the sign for equality that it introduced was used fairly promptly by Dee in his preface to Billingsley’s Euclid: its origin was not acknowledged. The Castle of Knowledge was republished only once, but had rendered obsolete the de Sphera of Sacrobosco and was supplanted eventually only by a series of practical texts on navigation. Recorde’s staunchest supporter and effectively his patron was Reyner Wolfe, his publisher. They both supported the Reformation and had antiquarian interests in common. Wolfe was close to Cranmer and probably was the means by which Recorde accessed many of the books by Continental authors that he used.
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Notes
- 1.
Bennett HS (1970) English books and readers, 1475–1557, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 27–29
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Adair ER (1924) William Thomas. In: Tudor studies. Longmans. Green & Co., London, pp 133–160, 159–60
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On Dee’s copy of Cardano’s In Libelli Quinto, held by the Royal College of Physicians, in Dee’s hand is written ‘Veni in Serviti comitis W. Pembrok, 1552 fine februarii die 28’
- 5.
French PJ (1972) John Dee, the world of an Elizabethan Magus. Routledge and Keegan Paul, London, Chapters 2, Chapters 7
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Leonard and Thomas Digges, ‘An Arithmetical Militare Treatise, named STRATIOTICOS Compendiously teaching the Science of Numbers as well in Fractions as in Integers, and so much of the Rules and Equations Algebraical and Arte of Numbers Cossicall, as are requisite for the Proffesion of a Soldiour.’, Henrie Bynneman London 1579., sig. a.ij. [STC. No.6848]
- 7.
A comparison of the description of fractions by the two men is instructive. Leonard Digges writes, ‘A fraction is a Distribution, appointed of a part or parts of an Integer. As the Integers take their beginning at 1, and continue in number without ende, even so the said Integers, by imagination from one second part, may be dissolved, or broken in portions or parts infinite. The partes of those simple or principall Fractions, have also to them parts following.’ Recorde writes ‘Now you must understand, that as no fraction properly can be greater than 1, so in smallness under one the nature of fractions doth extend infinitely as the nature of whole numbers is to increase above one infinitely so that not only one may be divided into infinite fractions or parts, but also every fraction may be divided into infinite fractions or parts, which commonly be called fractions of fractions….’ Digges would have had more to learn from Recorde than vice versa.
- 8.
Stratiaticos, loc. cit., 31
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Feingold M loc. cit, Chapter II, pp 45–85
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As quoted by Keith Thomas in his article ‘Numeracy in early modern England’, T.R.H.S., ser.5, XXVII(1987),118
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Powell A, loc. cit., 310
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The first half of Diarmaid MacCulloch’s book, Thomas Cranmer: A Life, Yale University Press, 1996) deals with the matter.
- 22.
MacCulloch D, ibid., 66
- 23.
In the Letters and Papers of King Henry VIII series there are a number of references to Reyner Wolfe acting as a courier between Cranmer or members of Cranmer’s entourage and their religious contacts, Bullinger, Theabold and Bucer, on the mainland during the years 1538–1540. [Vol, 12 Pt 2 no.969; Vol13, Pt I, no.754: Vol.13 Pt 2, no. 509: Vol 15, nos. 269, 458]. He also acted as the conduit between the King and Cromwell and Christopher Mounte their continental agent during 1539 [Vol. 14, Pt 2, nos. 580, 703, 781f.63]
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STC. 4807
- 29.
STC. 19904
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MacCulloch D loc. cit., pp 609, 635–636
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Selwyn DG (1996) The library of Thomas Cranmer. Oxford Bibliographic Society, Oxford
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Williams, J. (2011). His Readers and His Publisher. In: Robert Recorde. History of Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-862-1_12
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