Comments on: Sowing Broadcast http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2009/10/08/sowing-broadcast/ Sun, 19 May 2013 21:51:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Deirdre Larkin http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2009/10/08/sowing-broadcast/comment-page-1/#comment-7712 Deirdre Larkin Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:06:20 +0000 http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/?p=3465#comment-7712 Jonathan---Dorothy Hartley doesn't maintain that agricultural counts were limited to ten, but that they were usually kept by thinking in four sets of five fingers, making up a score of twenty. She adds that most old agricultural counts do run in fours. There seems to be a fairly extensive literature on counting rhymes and songs---are there any sources that you recommend? Jonathan—Dorothy Hartley doesn’t maintain that agricultural counts were limited to ten, but that they were usually kept by thinking in four sets of five fingers, making up a score of twenty. She adds that most old agricultural counts do run in fours. There seems to be a fairly extensive literature on counting rhymes and songs—are there any sources that you recommend?

]]> By: Jonathan Jarrett http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/2009/10/08/sowing-broadcast/comment-page-1/#comment-7565 Jonathan Jarrett Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:41:43 +0000 http://blog.metmuseum.org/cloistersgardens/?p=3465#comment-7565 <blockquote>Field workers would not have been able to write or to count above ten...</blockquote> Write, OK, but whence the idea of counting being limited to fingers? The various sheep-counting rhymes that persisted in rural England till not long ago run up to twenty or even thirty, and those shepherds had no extra resources that the medieval sower didn't.

Field workers would not have been able to write or to count above ten…

Write, OK, but whence the idea of counting being limited to fingers? The various sheep-counting rhymes that persisted in rural England till not long ago run up to twenty or even thirty, and those shepherds had no extra resources that the medieval sower didn’t.

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