[437] This is all that we know of his sojourn in Spain, and this comes from his pupil Richer. The stories told by Adhemar of Chabanois, an apparently ignorant and certainly untrustworthy contemporary, of his going to Cordova, are unsupported. (See e.g. Picavet, p. 34.) Nevertheless this testimony is still accepted: K. von Raumer, for example (_Geschichte der Paedagogik_, 6th ed., 1890, Vol. I, p. 6), says "Mathematik studierte man im Mittelalter bei den Arabern in Spanien. Zu ihnen gieng Gerbert, nachmaliger Pabst Sylvester II." [438] Thus in a letter to Aldaberon he says: "Quos post repperimus speretis, id est VIII volumina Boeti de astrologia, praeclarissima quoque figurarum geometriae, aliaque non minus admiranda" (Epist. 8). Also in a letter to Rainard (Epist. 130), he says: "Ex tuis sumptibus fac ut michi scribantur M. Manlius (Manilius in one MS.) de astrologia." [439] Picavet, loc. cit., p. 31. [440] Picavet, loc. cit., p. 36. [441] Havet, loc. cit., p. vii. [442] Picavet, loc. cit., p. 37. [443] "Con sinistre arti conseguri la dignita del Pontificato.... Lasciato poi l' abito, e 'l monasterio, e datosi tutto in potere del diavolo." [Quoted in Bombelli, _L'antica numerazione Italica_, Rome, 1876, p. 41 n.] [444] He writes from Rheims in 984 to one Lupitus, in Barcelona, saying: "Itaque librum de astrologia translatum a te michi petenti dirige," presumably referring to some Arabic treatise. [Epist. no. 24 of the Havet collection, p. 19.] [445] See Bubnov, loc. cit., p. x. [446] Olleris, loc. cit., p. 361, l. 15, for Bernelinus; and Bubnov, loc. cit., p. 381, l. 4, for Richer. [447] Woepcke found this in a Paris MS. of Radulph of Laon, c. 1100. [_Propagation_, p. 246.] "Et prima quidem trium spaciorum superductio unitatis caractere inscribitur, qui chaldeo nomine dicitur igin." See also Alfred Nagl, "Der arithmetische Tractat des Radulph von Laon" (_Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Mathematik_, Vol. V, pp. 85-133), p. 97. [448] Weissenborn, loc. cit., p. 239. When Olleris (_Oeuvres de Gerbert_, Paris, 1867, p. cci) says, "C'est a lui et non point aux Arabes, que l'Europe doit son systeme et ses signes de numeration," he exaggerates, since the evidence is all against his knowing the place value. Friedlein emphasizes this in the _Zeitschrift fuer Mathematik und Physik_, Vol. XII (1867), _Literaturzeitung_, p. 70: "Fuer das _System_ unserer Numeration ist die _Null_ das wesentlichste Merkmal, und diese kannte Gerbert nicht. Er selbst schrieb alle Zahlen mit den roemischen Zahlzeichen und man kann ihm also nicht verdanken, was er selbst nicht kannte." [449] E.g., Chasles, Buedinger, Gerhardt, and Richer. So Martin (_Recherches nouvelles_ etc.) believes that Gerbert received them from Boethius or his followers. See Woepcke, _Propagation_, p. 41.