How did the Hindu Arabic number system come to be used in Europe and England?
In Christian Europe, the first mention and representation of Hindu-Arabic numerals (from one to nine, without zero), is in the Codex Vigilanus, an illuminated compilation of various historical documents from the Visigothic period in Spain, written in the year 976 by three monks of the Riojan monastery of San MartÃn de Albelda. Between 967 and 969, Gerbert of Aurillac discovered and studied Arab science in the Catalan abbeys. Later he obtained from these places the book De multiplicatione et divisione (On the multiplication and division). After having become pope Sylvester II in the year 999, he introduced a new model of abacus, the so called Abacus of Gerbert, by adopting tokens representing Hindu-Arab numerals, from one to nine. Leonardo Fibonacci brought this system to Europe. His book Liber Abaci introduced Arabic numerals, the use of zero, and the decimal place system to the Latin world. The numeral system came to be called “Arabic” by the Europeans. It was used in European mathema
