IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB275526844

Instruments of Statecraft: Humphrey Cole, Elizabethan Economic Policy and the Rise of Practical Mathematics (2018)

Jardine, Boris (Author)

Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Volume: 75
Issue: 4
Pages: 304-329

URI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00033790.2018.1528510

DOI: 10.1080/00033790.2018.1528510

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

This paper offers a re-interpretation of the development of practical mathematics in Elizabethan England, placing artisanal know-how and the materials of the discipline at the heart of analysis, and bringing attention to Tudor economic policy by way of historical context. A major new source for the early instrument trade is presented: a manuscript volume of Chancery Court documents c.1565–c.1603, containing details of a patent granting a monopoly on making and selling mathematical instruments, circa 1575, to an unnamed individual, identified here as the instrument maker Humphrey Cole. Drawing on economic and legal history, the paper argues that practical mathematics needs to be understood as one ‘project’ among many, at a time when monopoly patents were used to advance industry, lower unemployment, secure the realm and reward invention. Drawing on the history and sociology of technology, it argues that the management and control of materials – mathematical instruments themselves, and the local socio-legal context within which they could be made – needs to be understood as prior to and separate from the rhetoric of mathematical authors, which is of interest in its own right but which may not have a direct relationship to mathematical practice.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB275526844/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Chapter Lesley B. Cormack; (2017)
Handwork and Brainwork: Beyond the Zilsel Thesis (/isis/citation/CBB086998890/)

Article Bellhouse, David R.; (2015)
Mathematicians and the Early English Life Insurance Industry (/isis/citation/CBB001552092/)

Article R. J. W. Mills; (2018)
William Falconer’s Remarks on the Influence of Climate (1781) and the Study of Religion in Enlightenment England (/isis/citation/CBB895379293/)

Article Vera Keller; Ted McCormick; (2016)
Towards a History of Projects (/isis/citation/CBB680817776/)

Article Bayley, Mel; (2007)
Hard Times and Statistics (/isis/citation/CBB000831565/)

Article Eric H. Ash; (2016)
Reclaiming a New World: Fen Drainage, Improvement, and Projectors in Seventeenth-Century England (/isis/citation/CBB095735427/)

Book Sharpe, James; (2001)
Witchcraft in Early Modern England (/isis/citation/CBB000102145/)

Thesis Cunningham, Richard; (2000)
The attraction of the truth: Navigating experience and literature in early modern England (/isis/citation/CBB001562674/)

Essay Review Hedesan, Georgiana; (2013)
Alchemy in Early Modern England (/isis/citation/CBB001566474/)

Article Wardhaugh, Benjamin; (2007)
Poor Robin and Merry Andrew: Mathematical Humour in Restoration England (/isis/citation/CBB000831576/)

Article Stephen Clucas; (2020)
‘The Curious Ways to Observe Weight in Water’: Thomas Harriot and His Experiments on Specific Gravity (/isis/citation/CBB540570530/)

Thesis Williams, Travis Dean; (2006)
Ethos and Enargeia: Literary and Rhetorical Strategies of Early Modern Mathematics (/isis/citation/CBB001561461/)

Chapter Robert Goulding; (2016)
Henry Savile Reads His Euclid (/isis/citation/CBB403914787/)

Article Johnston, Stephen; (2012)
John Dee on Geometry: Texts, Teaching and the Euclidean Tradition (/isis/citation/CBB001251143/)

Thesis Costa, Shelley Anne; (2000)
The “Ladies' Diary”: Society, gender and mathematics in England, 1704--1754 (/isis/citation/CBB001562687/)

Book Turner, Henry S.; (2006)
The English Renaissance Stage: Geometry, Poetics, and the Practical Spatial Arts 1580--1630 (/isis/citation/CBB000640791/)

Article Mandosio, Jean-Marc; (2012)
Beyond Pico della Mirandola: John Dee's “Formal Numbers” and “Real Cabala” (/isis/citation/CBB001251145/)

Book Mariassunta Picardi; (2019)
Il geroglifico della natura. Filosofia, scienza e magia in John Dee (/isis/citation/CBB674580890/)

Book Stedall, Jacqueline A.; (2011)
From Cardano's Great Art to Lagrange's Reflections: Filing a Gap in the History of Algebra (/isis/citation/CBB001321014/)

Article Craik, Alex D. D.; (2015)
A Book for the King: John Geddy's Methodi sive compendii mathematici (1586) (/isis/citation/CBB001552094/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}