Customer Reviews

The Medieval Craft of Memory: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Material Texts)

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"The Medieval Craft of Memory: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures" is a valuable resource for the independent scholar interested in Medieval thought and mnemonic techniques. As a companion to Mary Carruther's other book "The Book of Memory" it is a welcome complement. It is of especial interest for the partially educated (as most of us are in these academic dark ages) as the selections are translated from Latin. Many of the original works are extremely difficult to find outside specialised libraries, so this book also is a tremendous time-saver. It is particularly useful as source for finding other works, as some of the selections are only partial. Of course, this would necessitate a knowledge of Latin. It would have been nice to have the Latin as well, but one can't have everything.

For those interested in what authors the work selects from, they are as follows: Hugh of St. Victor, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Frances Eiximenis, Thomas Bradwardine, John of Metz, Jacobus Publicius, and an anonymous author. The mnemonic device of the Guidonian Hand is also given, but it is an illustration. Each author and selection is introduced with introductions of varying lengths. A general introduction begins the book as a whole, which is frequently useful (it is imperfect, but one can overlook that due to the value of the selected texts). A bibliography and index close the work.

An appendix that includes brief selections from two texts from late antiquity, namely Consultus Fortunatianus's "On Memory" and C. Julius Victor's "On Memory" is also included.

The greatest aggravation this book possesses is its brevity. In 311 pages it covers 14 authors, and at times the selections simply seem too short. Further, both St. Thomas's and St. Albert's commentaries on Aristotle's "On Memory and Recollection" require one two acquire a copy of Aristotle's original work, which is not included yet is needed to truly comprehend the commentaries. It is not difficult to find, but it is still a minor aggravation.

As a whole, however, this book is extremely useful. It is not light reading, however, as it is a scholarly work and one should be prepared to work a little when one reads it. It is excellent for the medievalist, the enthusiast of mnemonics, historians of thought, and those simply interested in how well people can actually think and remember and how to go about training themselves to do so. At times the tone of the academic preambles of the editors are a little too dismissive of the medievals's values, but overall the book is an excellent tool for the thinking person. My hat is off to the publisher for putting out an academic publication that isn't a waste of paper and space.

Take a look to see the kinds of images and tricks used by your ancient ancestors to remember massive amounts of all sorts of information. The medieval arts of memory are really ancient memory arts derived from the ancient Greeks and adapted to medieval purposes. The subject matter is therefore (what else?) religious, but the principles are the same. These arts cannot be learned by the application of general rules alone. Examples are needed and are supplied here in abundance. The arts are immediate and individual and need the application of the individual imagination in order to work effectively. The mnemonic image I like the best is penance. It is a seraph that is quite imposing when seen as a whole and almost seemingly impossible to memorize. But, because it is logically arranged and lends itself to narrative clues and cues, the thirty visual components of penance become clear and easy to recall. Thus penance becomes a easily assimilated doctrine, not a gaseous cloud of ideas, and something indisipensible to any twelfth-century reader striving for holiness.

This approach to memory explains how so many illiterate folk were able to present stories and often volumes of information without textual backup. We always seem to think of the "mid ages" betwixt the ROMANS (wow!) and the Renaissance as ignorant and "dark." It is only our lack of information that allows us to do so. This volume fills in many of the crevices, with little-known textual material.
I love it!