Interesting line of speculation! One point that occurs to me is that the extension of final minims wasn't limited to Roman numerals. To give just one other example, in much early modern French handwriting final "n" is written as (in effect) "ij," and final "m" as "iij." A couple quick examples pulled from the closest document at hand: "ou environ" --
and "ch[asc]un an" --
In this case, the result is to disambiguate final "n" from final "u," which instead ends with an upward curve. Meanwhile, a word-initial minim of "m" or "n" circles up and around from below, while a word-initial minim of "v/u" descends from above. But "u" and "n" *within* words aren't disambiguated, so if the goal was to disambiguate, it was inconsistent at best.
Maybe such features later made Roman numerals attractive as a way to make records more difficult to tamper with, but I doubt that's why they came about in the first place.
What other thoughts do people have about how these features came about and what functions they might have served?
and "ch[asc]un an" --
In this case, the result is to disambiguate final "n" from final "u," which instead ends with an upward curve. Meanwhile, a word-initial minim of "m" or "n" circles up and around from below, while a word-initial minim of "v/u" descends from above. But "u" and "n" *within* words aren't disambiguated, so if the goal was to disambiguate, it was inconsistent at best.
Maybe such features later made Roman numerals attractive as a way to make records more difficult to tamper with, but I doubt that's why they came about in the first place.
What other thoughts do people have about how these features came about and what functions they might have served?
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