Christ Church Library recently acquired De arte supputandi libri quartuor (Strasbourg, 1544), by Cuthbert Tunstall, a rare edition of the first English book wholly devoted to arithmetic. Tunstall (1474-1559), bishop of Durham and diplomat, wrote De arte supputandi libri quartuor as a practical work on arithmetic with an emphasis on commercial transactions.  First published in 1522, the book includes many business applications of the time, such as partnership, profit and loss and exchange. It also includes the rule of false, the rule of three and numerous applications of these and other rules. It is dedicated to Thomas More who had been appointed sub-Treasurer of England in 1521. (This was a return of the compliment which More had paid Tunstall in 1515 in the opening lines of the Utopia.) The work was actually rather too scholarly for ordinary businessmen and it was not reprinted in England.  It was prescribed as an arithmetical study text in the Oxford statues of 1549.

The key attraction of this copy for Christ Church is its provenance. The book was owned by Thomas Lilat, who was born in 1529 in Sussex, came up as a Student in 1546 (tutored by Thomas Day and Henry Siddall), BA 1551, MA 1555, BD 1561)t. Lilat left Christ Church in 1561 becoming rector of Houghton with Wytton in Northamptonshire in 1562, then Westley in Suffolk in 1572; so there is a possibility that Lilat used the book while he was at Christ Church.  Lilat’s signature and Greek inscription appear on the title page.