ABSTRACT
Among the works which are ascribed to Beda Venerabilis (672/3 to 735) in the early printed editions 1 is the short treatise entitled De arithmeticis propositionibus (here abbreviated as Ar.pr.). Until now it has been neglected by mediaevalists and historians of mathematics, though only few mathematical works are known from 8th- and 9th-century Europe and the content of the work is of considerable interest. Of the four parts the first three give procedures to find numbers. The procedures outlined appear to be described in Western Europe for the first time in this treatise; afterwards they became a constant feature of recreational mathematics until early modern times. The fourth section gives rules for the addition of positive and negative numbers. There is no other text like this in Western Europe before the 15th century; comparable rules with negative numbers before this time are known only in Indian and Chinese sources. Parts 1 and 2 of this article are concerned with the transmission of the text and the affiliation of the manuscripts. In Part 3 the importance of this treatise for the history of mathematics is discussed. In Part 4 questions of authorship and the date of composition are treated.
