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Teaching geometry to 11 year old “medieval lawyers”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Jan Van Maanen
Jan Van Maanen*
Affiliation:
University of Groningen and University of Utrecht, Mathematical InstituteP.O. Box 80.010, NL-3508 TA Utrecht The Netherlands
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Extract

In 1355 the Italian professor of law Bartolus of Saxoferrato (1313-1357) wrote a treatise on the division of alluvial deposit. The problem he discussed is the following (figure 1). Some landowners, Bartolus calls them Gaius, Lucius, and Ticius, have neighbouring properties beside the bank of a river. The river deposits silt so that new land is formed at the riverside. How is this new fertile soil to be divided up ?

Type
Research Article
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 76 , Issue 475 , March 1992 , pp. 37 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 1992

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