What would “Wisdom, XI, 20” mean in the medieval era?
It means the Book of Wisdom (a book of the Bible), chapter 11, verse 20. Writing dates depended on which country you were in – the language differs between countries. It also depends on whether we’re talking about the early, high or late middle ages. In the early period, people would be more likely to use Roman numerals. In the later middle ages, Arabic numerals (the ones we use now) would be more common. Otherwise, the date would be written similarly to now. The only big difference is that Europeans (and I’m assuming we’re only talking about medieval Europeans?) might write something like “In the year of our Lord” with the date. So you might see 14 March 932 or March 14 932 or “On the 14th day of March in the year of our Lord 932” or even Anno Domini (Latin for “In the year of our Lord) There are no real spelling conventions in medieval English, so there aren’t always hard and fast rules for dates, either.
