It being doubtful whether Boethius ever knew the Hindu numeral forms, certainly without the zero in any case, it becomes necessary now to consider the question of their definite introduction into Europe. From what has been said of the trade relations between the East and the West, and of the probability that it was the trader rather than the scholar who carried these numerals from their original habitat to various commercial centers, it is evident that we shall never know when they first made their inconspicuous entrance into Europe. Curious customs from the East and from the tropics,--concerning games, social peculiarities, oddities of dress, and the like,--are continually being related by sailors and traders in their resorts in New York, London, Hamburg, and Rotterdam to-day, customs that no scholar has yet described in print and that may not become known for many years, if ever. And if this be so now, how much more would it have been true a thousand years before the invention of printing, when learning was at its lowest ebb. It was at this period of low esteem of culture that the Hindu numerals undoubtedly made their first appearance in Europe. There were many opportunities for such knowledge to reach Spain and Italy. In the first place the Moors went into Spain as helpers of a claimant of the throne, and {100} remained as conquerors. The power of the Goths, who had held Spain for three centuries, was shattered at the battle of Jerez de la Frontera in 711, and almost immediately the Moors became masters of Spain and so remained for five hundred years, and masters of Granada for a much longer period. Until 850 the Christians were absolutely free as to religion and as to holding political office, so that priests and monks were not infrequently skilled both in Latin and Arabic, acting as official translators, and naturally reporting directly or indirectly to Rome. There was indeed at this time a complaint that Christian youths cultivated too assiduously a love for the literature of the Saracen, and married too frequently the daughters of the infidel.[396] It is true that this happy state of affairs was not permanent, but while it lasted the learning and the customs of the East must have become more or less the property of Christian Spain. At this time the [.g]ob[=a]r numerals were probably in that country, and these may well have made their way into Europe from the schools of Cordova, Granada, and Toledo.