>From spending my share of time with medieval mss, as many of you have, it
seems to me that the strict standardization of Roman numerals is a creation
of 19th and 20th century elementary school textbooks, and that there is
room for flexibility. MIM looks infelicitous to me, but I have no good
reason whatsoever to defend that. Its meaning is clear enough. (Now,
perhaps one's measure should be classical or hellenistic Roman
inscriptions, but that's out of my league; it could be they had it
standardized and the Middle Ages, as in so many areas, loosened things up a
bit.)
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Patrick J. Nugent
Department of Religion
Earlham College
Richmond, Indiana 47374 USA
(765) 983-1413
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