Skepticism. Language was definitely both a means and a barrier to communication between different lands. The activities of political alliance, religion, and schooling each had an important linguistic element. For both trade and war, language was almost an ancillary form of communication. Numeracy was far more important than literacy within the medieval trade sphere. The introduction of Arabic numerals into Europe in 1202 could have afforded much-eased interaction in becoming the numerus francus between traders of different lands. The numerals themselves were, however, identified with the translation movement centered in Toledo, Spain, so strongly in fact that they were known as toletanae figurae (Toletan numbers), and European regimes interpreted the use of the Arabic import quite hostilely. In Florence an edict was issued in 1299 forbidding bankers from using Arabic numerals instead of the cumbersome Roman numerals they had gladly abandoned.

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