Historic Discussions of Probability and Probability Comparisons

Question

I was curious if anyone has any resources about how probability and comparisons of likelihoods were discussed in early English, or in other languages earlier in human history. In particular, I'm curious about how these discussions were had (if they were had at all) before the abstraction of "probability" as a mapping of events onto the numbers 0-1.
To be clear, I'm not talking about the history of probability as a mathematical concept, but how language developed to capture an intuitive notion of "likelihood" before the mathematical formalism had been developed. For example, if I’m a farmer in the Middle Ages, how would I talk about the likelihood of a flood, or the likelihood of my feudal lord increasing taxes on my grain this coming harvest season? It seems natural that there would be a way to say "I think [event] is likely" or "I think [event]" is unlikely, but I don't know if more complicated probabilistic comparisons would be possible. For example, was there language to express ideas like "I think it is more likely that my taxes go up than it is that there is a rainstorm tomorrow?"
I could easily imagine a world where this isn't possible or simply isn't done. In particular, it seems like comparing comparing the likelihoods of drastically different types of events requires a certain abstraction of "probability" that might not have been developed yet or widely understood. Comparing likelihood of a tax increase to the likelihood of rain seems more "abstract" to me than comparing different outcomes of dice rolls in early gambling games.
As a comparison, I can easily imagine a language, with only three quantifying words, “none”, “a”, and “some”, we well as one comparison word, “more”. So that “Alice has no cows”, “Alice has a cow”, “Alice has more cows than Bob” are all expressible ideas. However it is clear that saying “Alice has 5 more cows than Bob” is not expressible. Did such a situation occur with likelihood comparisons?
Since the language we use at least partially shapes the thoughts we have, it seems possible to me that these types of comparisons simply weren't made before we had the language to discuss them. I'm very curious about this. Please share any resources about how probability and likelihood were discussed earlier in history.

Old Brixtonian · Answer

I don't think it's much help but, from a quick look, there seems to be plenty of talk of probability in the Late Medieval period.
'Likelihood' is used several times in The Canterbury Tales. For example, the Prioress says,

To every place where she hath supposed
By liklihede hir litel child to fynde;

And a comparison of likelihoods is made in the Canon's Yeoman's Tale:

He is as boold to renne agayn a stoon
As for to goon bisides in the weye.

ie. He is as likely to run into a stone as to go round it-.
And 'Likeliness' is used in the Clerk's Tale:

God hath swich favour sent hire of his grace
That it ne semed nat by liklynesse
That she was born and fed in rudenesse,

Reginald Pecock - forty or fifty years later - talks about probabilities in The Follower to the Donet, and seems familiar with schools of logic:

Of euer eiþir of þe seid premyssis concludyng for feiþ, y haue not
oonli likli euydencis, whiche ben clepid in scolis of logik probable
euydencis or probabilitees, but y haue sure certeynte bi kunnyng or bi
experience.

In The Rule of Christian Religion he says,

Mannys resoun in þis lijf wiþoute helpe of feiþ can not fynde and
knowe bi certeynte..or probabilte þat þe feende is oure enemye.

and

Resoun may fynde in certeynte or in greet probabilite or likelihode
þat þou, lord god, art moost worþi to be apprisid and loued of vs.

The phrase "probabilite or likelihode" appears again in his Repressing of Over Mich Wyting the Clergie.
You might do better at the StackExchange 'Literature' site. Good luck!

Historic Discussions of Probability and Probability Comparisons

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