Zahlenfähigkeit und Zahlendisziplin in Nord- und Westdeutschland, 16.-18. Jahrhundert.

The article discusses the relatively high standard of living in the era between the Middle Ages and the turn of the 18th century as owing in large part to educational attainment, which itself is problematic to measure from data. The authors propose a statistical method to determine numeracy, rather that literacy based on signed documents. Distortions in reporting and rounding of ages ("age heaping") are explained as arising from educational level, infant protein deprivation, and exposure to Bible-reading in Protestantism. Early Modern census data from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, are examined in an exemplary case study.