Counting as we know it, including zero as a number, was brought to the traders and merchants of Europe by Leonardo of Pisa (whom we now know as Fibonacci) by his book "Liber Abbaci" in 1202. This system was already used by academics for mathematics, but was not known to the majority of the population. (ref: "The man of Numbers" by Keith Devlin, ISBN 978-1-4088-2248-7) My question is how did common people here in Britain count before that, for instance the year, day of month, hour of day: how were they counted, if at all?
I was seduced by the simplicity of Cominterm's comment/answer, but what happened when they got to "ten", and "eleven" and "twenty" and "one hundred" without knowing about a zero digit?
Regarding the "put on hold" this is not a trivial question that can be answered fairly easily -- I spent a lot of time trying to find out before I posted it here, and surely it comes well within "Cultures and historical practices" as listed in "What topics can I ask about here?" I am interested in the evolution from Roman numerals to Indo/Arabic, particularly in how people described dates, especially days of the month.