Alcuin of York

Descrizione: Maths games at Charlemagne’s court

Alcuin of York (735-804), English monk, director/head/leader of the prestigious school of theYork
Cathedral, had been invited by Charlemagne to reorganize the schools of the Empire and, in
particular, the Palace School, the famous Schola Palatina.
Alcuin established/fixed the cultural-pedgogical system of the schools settled, by order of
Charlemagne, in the main archbishops’ seats and monasteries, introducing the disciplines of the
Trivium (grammar, rethoric and logic) and Quadrivium (arithmetics, geometry, music and
astronomy).
He favoured the spread of a simple, elegant and easily readable writing called Caroline minuscule.
Not only religious texts but also the oldest/most ancient versions of many Greek mathematical
works arrived up to present/our times, were copied down with this writing/font.
Here’s an example of Caroline minuscule font made at/with the computer, but quite faithful to the
original one:

In the XII century the Caroline minuscule (was) changed, in Rome, into the Roman minuscule,
which can be considered the forerunner of a very known and spread type font at present: the Times
New Roman.
Alcuin, who was also asked (required) to teach the Emperor’s children, wrote different texts for the
new schools and among these the Propositiones ad acuendo iuvenes (Problems to sharpen the
young), (which are) the oldest collection of Maths problems in Latin known at present. His
problems are very similar to what we nowadays call “Maths games”.
The Italian expression “Save goat and cabbage”, which sounds “run with the hare and hunt with
the hounds”, “ you can't have your cake and eat it”, or “ manage to have it both ways” in
English, (meaning to get out of an impasse, to have it both ways, to keep everybody happy),
derives from a well-known problem included in Alcuin’s book.
The problem is Propositio de lupo et capra et fasciculo cauli (The wolf, goat and cabbage).
Among the 53 propositiones (problems) there are the first known versions of some very interesting
problems. Some of them, as the so called “Jeep problem”, which is a variant/version of Propositio
LII, are still used nowadays even in the Universities to face/focus on important Maths topics.
Here’s the text of this problem:

 LII. PROPOSITIO (PROBLEM) ABOUT THE HOUSEHOLDER

 A householder ordered 90 modii (container about 9 litres) of wheat to be taken from one of
his houses to another, 30 leagues (about 5 km) away. Since the total charge of wheat could
be taken by a camel in three times (trips), and since a camel feeds on one modium each
league, can you tell, if you want, how many modii remained (at the end of the journey)?