Fool: The cipher among numbers / figures.

34
SteveM wrote:
"...in 13th century Paris a worthless fellow or good for nothing was called a 'cifre en algorisme, that is, an 'arithmetical nothing.'

Ifrah - Universal History of Numbers.
The chant used as part of a medieval university initiation ritual (german):


“O beane, O asine, O foetide hirce, O olens capra, O bufo, O cifra, O figura nihili, O tu omnino nihil.”

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WFMH ... &q&f=false

It is with English description in chapter vi: 'The Jocund Advent' of Medieval University Life, here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20958/20 ... 0958-h.htm