The impact of mathematics on medieval economics

¶ … mathematics on economics: Medieval era

A number of new developments occurred during the early Middle Ages in the Arab world to make current methods of calculating economic principles possible: the first was the development of so-called 'Arabic' numbers, which enabled easier calculation methods than the numbers of the Roman numerical system, and the second major influence was that of the development of algebra. However, in Europe, in stark contrast to the ancient Romans and Greeks as well as their Arab contemporaries, medieval Europeans during the feudal era seemed to have less of a fascination with exact calculations and geometric theories. "The Church's education program consisted of schools which taught what was dictated by the Bible and the Pope, they were attached to churches, operated by monks and taught from the geometric, musical, and arithmetic compilations of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius" (Dickerson 1996). Theology rather than mathematics was the most celebrated of all the intellectual disciplines.

Only with the expansion of capitalism did things begin to change. The increased use of money as a placeholder of value, the evolution more elaborate government bureaucracies and national taxation systems demanded elaborate (and exact) methods of calculation. "Theorists of capitalism" such as Werner Sombart state unequivocally that the "beginning and end" of capitalist activities is "a sum of money," which must be calculated and trace the renewed interest in higher mathematics to mercantile capitalism and the need for an easily convertible medium of exchange (Sachs 2000).