The Medieval Craft of Memory

by Carruthers, Mary; Ziolkowski, Jan M.

• ISBN13: 9780812218817
• ISBN10: 0812218817
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Pennsylvania Pr

Summary

In antiquity and the Middle Ages, memory was a craft, and certain actions and tools were thought to be necessary for its creation and recollection. Until now, however, many of the most important visual and textual sources on the topic have remained untranslated or otherwise difficult to consult. Mary Carruthers and Jan M. Ziolkowski bring together the texts and visual images from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries that are central to an understanding of memory and memory technique. These sources are now made available for a wider audience of students of medieval and early modern history and culture and readers with an interest in memory, mnemonics, and the synergy of text and image. The art of memory was most importantly associated in the Middle Ages with composition, and those who practiced the craft used it to make new prayers, sermons, pictures, and music. The mixing of visual and verbal media was commonplace throughout medieval cultures: pictures contained visual puns, words were often verbal paintings, and both were used equally as tools for making thoughts. The ability to create pictures in one's own mind was essential to medieval cognitive technique and imagination, and the intensely pictorial and affective qualities of medieval art and literature were generative, creative devices in themselves.

Author Biography

Mary Carruthers is Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Literature and Dean for the Humanities at New York University. She is author of The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture and The Craft of Thought: Rhetoric, Meditation, and the Making of Images, 400-1200. Jan M. Ziolkowski is Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin at Harvard University and editor of Obscenity: Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European Middle Ages.

Table of Contents

General Introduction	1	(31)
Hugh of St. Victor, The Three Best Memory Aids for Learning History	32	(9)
Hugh of St. Victor, A Little Book About Constructing Noah's Ark	41	(30)
The Guidonian Hand	71	(12)
[Alan of Lille], On the Six Wings of the Seraph	83	(20)
Boncompagno da Signa, On Memory	103	(15)
Albertus Magnus, Commentary on Aristotle, On Memory and Recollection	118	(35)
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle, On Memory and Recollection	153	(36)
Francesc Eiximenis, On Two Kinds of Order That Aid Understanding and Memory	189	(16)
Thomas Bradwardine, On Acquiring a Trained Memory	205	(10)
John of Metz, The Tower of Wisdom	215	(11)
Jacobus Publicius, The Art of Memory	226	(29)
Anonymous, A Method for Recollecting the Gospels	255	(40)
Appendix: Two Texts on Rhetorical Memoria from Late Antiquity	295	(4)
Consultus Fortunatianus, On Memory	295	(2)
C. Julius Victor, On Memory	297	(2)
General Bibliography	299	(6)
List of Contributors	305	(2)
Index	307