Ibn Ezra wrote a points scoring table in the mid-1100s to help students work out chart almutens. If he wasn't the first, it was around that time that people started writing them.
Regrettably, the tables have been pushed way beyond their purpose, so we have people talking about their +6 Mercury! and the like. That was never the intention. The problem with tables, probably since their inception, is that students started lumping together dignities and debilities as all of a piece. There's a difference to exaltation or term, just like there's a difference to peregrine or fall. Plus signs count here. Your peregrine planet is going to do far better in a sign ruled by a well-placed Venus than it will in a sign ruled by a badly placed Saturn.