The vinculum, in its general use, was introduced by Frans van Schooten in 1646 as he edited the works of François Viète (who had himself not used this notation).
However, earlier versions, such as using an underline as Chuquet did in 1484, or in limited form as Descartes did in 1637, using it only in relation to the radical sign, were common.
Formerly its main use was as a notation to indicate a group (a bracketing device serving the same function as parentheses): meaning to add b and c first and then subtract the result from a, which would be written more commonly today as a − (b + c).
Parentheses, used for grouping, are only rarely found in the mathematical literature before the eighteenth century.
[8] The symbol used to indicate a vinculum need not be a line segment (overline or underline); sometimes braces can be used (pointing either up or down).