[split] f28v

[-JKP-]

Mark Knowles: Even JKP acknowledges that 4 was sometimes written like this.

I acknowledged that four was sometimes written like modern "4" but I also said it did not look like the strokes on the left of the VMS marks. Those are three separate strokes and how do you explain that curved thing underneath that is similar to a tail on a y (but not connected). There isn't any style of 4 that has that.



I grabbed these samples quickly, so it is only a small subset of the samples I have and you'll have to ignore the numbers for internal record-keeping (the date is on the top), but it's enough to show how they transitioned from Roman Numerals (which were very common in the 14th century), to the style of 4 used in the late 14th century and early 15th century (l) to a more modern 4 in the late 15th century:



Note, the one from 1385 might be a later addition. It's in similar ink to the main text, but the style is a bit different. I don't have time to double-check it right now, but if it's a gloss, it probably belongs to a later time period.