The Book of Memory
Page 70
iste modernus quo capitula cum libris signantur.’’
Notes to pp. 128–132
405
88. It is quite common to find space left in the written version of a sermon or
devotional text for the citation to be filled in; even so late a composition as
Reginald Peacock’s Donet shows this. On the relation between the stages of
composition leading to the scribally produced text, see Chapter 6, below.
89. Rouse and Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia, and Sermons, 16. The Dominican
concordance, a project overseen by Hugh of St. Cher, is described in DTC,
s.v. Hugues de Saint Cher. See also Rouse and Rouse, ‘‘La concordance
verbale des Ecritures.’’
90. Rouse and Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia, and Sermons, 16, note 30.
91. Rouse and Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia, and Sermons, 4. On the usefulness of
divisiones for the composition of sermons, see also Minnis, Theory of Authorship,
155–157, who quotes the Dominican Master-General, Humbert of Rouen, to the
effect that collections of these are ‘‘the arms of preachers’’ (156).
92. Charland, Artes praedicandi, 268–269: ‘‘Magistris autem et professoribus
sacrae theologiae licet, immo eos decet, omnia exquisite quotare, quia quan-
tum ad istud defertur eis ab aliis propter protestationem excellentiae magis-
tralis et ostentionem humilitatis in deferentibus, et propter dignitatem gradus
et honorem.’’
93. See Thomas Waleys’s remarks about the mnemonic value of citation
(Charland, Artes praedicandi, 347), quoted above. Christina von Nolcken,
‘‘Some Alphabetical Compendia,’’ includes a typical example of a distinctio on
a moral theme intended for use in preaching.
94. Charland, Artes praedicandi, 370; ‘‘Dato vero quod tantum una fiat divisio
thematis, adhuc illa divisio erit bene ut illis, tam praedicatori quam etiam
auditori. Non enim propter solam curiositatem, sicut aliqui credunt, invener-
unt moderni quod thema dividant, quod non consueverunt antiqui. Immo,
est utilis praedicatori, quia divisio thematis in diversa membra praebet occa-
sionem dilatationis in prosecutione ulteriori sermonis. Auditori vero est
multum utilis, quia, quando praedicator dividit thema et postmodum mem-
bra divisionis ordinate et distinctim prosequitur, faciliter capitur et tenetur
tam materia sermonis quam etiam forma et modus praedicandi; quod non erit
si praedicator indistincte ac sine ordine et forma confuse procedat.’’
95. Charland, Artes praedicandi, 110; on the overlap in form and method between
‘‘university’’ and ‘‘popular’’ sermons, see D’Avray, Preaching of the Friars,
123–125. Rivers, ‘‘Memory and Medieval Preaching,’’ has studied in particular
the use made of mnemonic precepts in the ars predicandi of the fourteenth-
century Catalan Franciscan, Francesc Eiximenis; see also her translation of a
generous section of Eiximenis’s art in Carruthers and Ziolkowski, eds., The
Medieval Craft of Memory.
96. See, for example, the sermons preached on February 23, 1305, in Sta. Maria
Novella; Delcorno, ed., Quaresimali Prediche, numbers 3 and 4.
97. Charland, Artes praedicandi, 311: ‘‘Take note of these divisions: the utility of
the Passion, ‘‘Jesus’’; the power of His suffering, ‘‘crying out’’; the truth of His
humanity, ‘‘in a loud voice’’; His freedom to suffer, ‘‘sent forth’’; the pain of
separation, ‘‘His spirit.’’
406
Notes to pp. 132–133
98. Charland, Artes praedicandi, 311–312: ‘‘Then [the theme] is subdivided as
follows: There are five vowels, AEIOU, which make up every word [with a
pun on the double meaning of vox, ‘‘word, voice’’]. Just so the five wounds of
Christ make up every cry whether of joy or of sorrow. Behold ‘‘in His hands’’
the A and the E: ‘‘with loving-kindness I have drawn thee’’ [beginning with A
in Latin] and Isaiah, ‘‘Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my
hands’’ [beginning with E in Latin]; ‘‘in His side’’ the I: such a mark the
wound of the lance imprinted, that is ‘‘the door of the Ark’’ which [was] ‘‘in
the side,’’ etc. in Genesis; and in John: ‘‘reach hither thy hand and thrust it
into my side, and be not unbelieving’’ [a verse which begins with an I in
Latin]; the O and U ‘‘in His feet’’: ‘‘thou hast put all things under his feet’’
[the Latin text begins with O]. So as you follow out [these links] you may say
in fact: ‘‘My foot has held his steps’ [the Latin begins with U].’’ A translation
of Basevorn’s text was published in Murphy, Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts,
though I have given my own here in an effort to stress the mnemonic form of
the advice.
99. In his ars memorativa, Thomas Bradwardine advises associating the number
five with the five wounds which Christ suffered on the cross; see Appendix C.
100. Charland, Artes praedicandi, 311–312: ‘ 1) Walk as children of light [Eph. 5:8];
2) Return, return, o Shulamite, return, return, that we may look upon thee
[Cant. 6:12]; 3) To comfort your own soul is pleasing to God [Eccles. 30:24];
4) Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance [Mt. 3:8]; 5) Loose thyself
from the bands of thy neck, o captive daughter of Zion [Is. 52:2]; 6) Wash ye,
make you clean [Is. 1:16].’’
101. On Guido’s solmization scheme and its development, including diagrams
displaying how the full gamut was expressed in its syllables, see the exposition
by K. Berger in Carruthers and Ziolkowski, eds., The Medieval Craft of
Memory, 71–82. A number of medieval renditions of the Guidonian Hand
are reproduced in Smits van Waesberghe, Musikersiehung. It is evident from
these diagrams that the hand diagram was not always drawn in the same way,
nor did the notes always occupy the same places. Indeed, a twentieth place on
the back of the middle finger was added to later schemes, extending the
nineteen places of the original diagram, which derived from its initial uses as a
device to calculate the moveable feasts of the liturgical calendar.
102. Guido d’Arezzo, Epistola de ignoto cantu: ‘‘Habebis ergo argumentum ad
inveniendum inauditum cantum facillimum et probatissimum . . . Namque
postquam hoc argumentum cepi pueris tradere, ante triduum quidam eorum
potuerunt ignotos cantus leviter canere, quod aliis argumentis nec multis
hebdomadibus poterat evenire’’; Gerbert, Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica
sacra (1794), vol. 2, 45. Translated by Strunk, revised McKinnon, 217.
103. Guido d’Arezzo, Epistola de ignoto cantu: ‘‘[P]ro unaquaque voce memoriae
retinenda’’; Gerbert, Scriptores, vol. 2, 45 (trans. Strunk, rev. McKinnon, 217).
The whole letter is a very interesting account of the building and extending of
a simple, rigid mnemonic to increasingly complex material. The scheme
began with a particular melody and text (the hymn to John the Baptist and a
Notes to pp. 134–138
407
melody that Guido either composed or adapted in such a way that the initial
syllables of the lines in the hymn matched their musical values) but was
extended to signify all the notes of the gamut
in every variety of combina-
tions, independent of the text or melody of a particular chant. It worked so
well, as the letter writer recognized, precisely because, unlike rote reiteration,
it created informationally rich units. A significant attempt to apply this
principle, and other mnemotechnic, to musical composition is Busse
Berger, Medieval Music and the Art of Memory.
104. PL 177, 135–164. Only two items are listed under ‘‘undecim’’ (col. 164C) –
compare the copious listings for all the other numbers, through ‘‘duodecim.’’
There are no listings for numbers greater than twelve, or for one, evidently
because ‘‘one’’ does not constitute a mnemonic ‘‘division.’’
105. Rouse and Rouse, Preachers, Florilegia, and Sermons, 69. A good example is
Alanus’s sermon ‘‘In adventu Domini,’’ PL 210, 214–218, though many of the
sermons contained in his ‘‘Art of Preaching’’ (which consists of examples
rather than general principles, like those of Robert of Basevorn and Thomas
Waleys) observe the same principle. Alanus also composed an alphabetically
arranged index of distinctions.
106. Inst. orat., X I . ii. 29: ‘‘If some things do not stick easily in the mind, it is quite
useful to attach some marks [notae] to them, the recall of which will warn and
jog the memory. No one surely will be so ill-endowed as not to remember
what Symbol [signum] he has assigned to any given passage.’’
107. Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 722. The textual pictures are indexed at the
end of this manuscript of Holcot’s commentaries, indicating that they were
intended to be particularly valuable heuristics to users of the book. A full
discussion is in Smalley, English Friars, 165–183; see also Saxl, ‘‘A Spiritual
Encyclopaedia,’ 101–103. I will further discuss the function of marginal
images in Chapter 7.
108. Peter of Ravenna, Fenix (Venice, 1491/2), c.iv.verso: ‘‘omnes enim lectiones
meas Iuris canonici sine libro quotidie lego: ac si librum ante oculos hab-
erem, textum et glossas memoriter pronuncio ut nec etiam minimam
syllabam omittere uidear.’’ (Textum in this context would refer to a cross-
referential web of passages which a lecturer would concord as he commented
on a passage of law, rather than to a ‘‘text’’ in the way we commonly use the
word now.) He continues, ‘‘In locis autem meis quae collocauerim hic
scribere statui et quae locis tradidi perpetuo teneo, in decem et nouem litteris
alphabeti vigintamilia allegationum Iuris utriusque posui.’’
109. Peter of Ravenna, Fenix, b.iv.verso: ‘‘pro litteris alphabeti homines habeo et
sic imagines vivas.’ The quotation which follows is also from this page. The
need for vivid images to serve as mnemonic cues is a commonplace of
mnemonic technique from antiquity onward, not depending solely, as we
will see, on the Rhetorica ad Herennium for its dissemination.
110. The manuscript is mentioned by McCulloch, Bestiaries, 42, and in Survival of
the Gods (exhibition catalogue, Brown University Art Department, 1987), no.
44. A color reproduction of two of its Bestiary pages is in the Pierpont
408
Notes to pp. 139–141
Morgan Library exhibition catalogue, Early Children’s Books and Their
Illustration (1957), 19 (illustration), 22.
111. Boncompagno, Rhetorica novissima (ed. Gaudenzi, 279): ‘‘Per illam siquidem
imaginationem alphabeti, memorie naturalis beneficio preeunte, in XXX
diebus quingentorum scholarium nomina memorie commendavi. Refero
etiam, quod mirabilius videbatur, quia unumquemque nomine proprio,
non omissa denominatione cognominis vel agnominis et specialis terre de
qua erat, in conspectu omnium appellabam: unde cuncti et singuli admir-
atione stupebant.’’ A translation by Sean Gallagher of the memoria section of
Boncompagno’s rhetoric is in Carruthers and Ziolkowski, eds., The Medieval
Craft of Memory. On Boncompagno’s work and personality (‘‘[c]ompletely
non-self-reflective’’), see Witt, ‘‘Boncompagno and the Defense of Rhetoric.’’
112. Bischoff, ‘‘The Study of Foreign Languages,’’ 232–233.
113. Etym., I . 3. 2: ‘‘Vsus litterarum repertus propter memoriam rerum. Nam ne
oblivione fugiant, litteris alligantur. In tanta enim rerum varietate nec disci
audiendo poterant omnia, nec memoria contineri.’’ See also I. 21. 1.
114. Inst. orat., I . i. 25–26. On early training in ancient schools, see Marrou,
L’Histoire de l’e´ducation, 211–214, 364–366. The learning of the alphabet in
late medieval schools, which had changed little from ancient times, is dis-
cussed by Orme, English Schools in the Middle Ages, 60–63.
115. Inst. orat., I . i. 25: ‘‘This is why teachers, even when they think they have
sufficiently fixed the letters in a child’s mind in the order in which they are
commonly first written, next reverse this, or muddle it up in various ways,
until the pupils come to recognize the letters by their shape and not by the
order in which they come.’’ In the cloister at Moissac, where novices were
schooled, there is a capital which mixes up the order of the alphabet in just the
way described here by Quintilian (AX, BV, and so on): see the discussion in
Rutchick, Sculptural Programs in the Moissac Cloister.
116. Inst. orat., I . i. 19: ‘‘initia litterarum sola memoria constant.’’
117. Inst. orat., I . i. 37.
118. Inst. orat., I . i. 36.
119. Marrou, L’Histoire de l’e
´ducation, 366. The stress on syllables as a basic unit for
teaching reading, and for organizing materials in monastically produced artes
lectoriae is discussed by Paul Gehl, ‘ Mystical Language Models’’; this essay
shows clearly some of the particular ways in which the pedagogy of grammar in
antiquity was adapted to the Christian education of the monasteries.
120. Marrou, L’Histoire de l’e´ducation, 553, note 30.
121. Quintilian discusses punctuation in Inst. orat., I X . iv. 122–125; the quotation is
from section 125.
122. Quoted from Inst. orat., I X . iv. 123. ‘‘Number’’ (rhythm) is analyzed in I X . iv.
52–57, where Quintilian distinguishes the numbers of prose from the more
formal meters of verse, and defines prose-rhythm as informal but certainly
present. The development of the prose cursus, a topic much discussed by
literary historians, and used in administrative and legal writing especially, is
probably a related mnemonic aid for the trained notary.
Notes to pp. 141–145
409
123. On the stability over time of the Latin Bible’s cola and commata divisions see
Berger, L’Histoire de la Vulgate, 317–318.
124. Metalogicon, I . 11. 49–50. ‘‘Memoria uero quasi mentis arca, firmaque et
fidelis custodia perceptorum’’; cf. ‘‘Et quia res percipit, earundem apud se
deponit imagines, quare retentione et frequenti reuolutione quasi thesaurum
memoriae sibi format’’ (IV. 9. 24–26). I use McGarry’s translation here and in
all subsequent quotations, with my changes indicated by square brackets.
125. Metalogicon, I . 20. 15–28. ‘ Sunt et notae quae scripturarum dis
tinguunt modos,
ut deprehendatur quid in eis lucidum, quid obscurum, quid certum, quid
dubium; et in hunc modum plurima. Pars haec tamen artis iam ex maxima
parte in desuetudinem abiit, adeo quidem, ut studiosissimi litteram merito
querantur, et fere lugeant rem utilissimam et tam ad res retinendas quam
intelligendas efficacissimam, maiorum nostrorum inuidia aut negligentia
artem dico deperisse notariam. Nec miretur quis tantam uim fuisse in notulis,
cum et musici cantores paucis characteribus multas acutarum et grauium
differentias indicent uocum. Et ob hoc quidem characteres illos, musicae claues
dicunt. Si tamen tanta scientiae clauis fuit in notulis, mirum est nostros licet
plura scierint, non agnouisse maiores, aut tantae scientiae perditas esse claues.’
126. Metalogicon, I . 20. 44–46: ‘‘et si totius haberi non potest, ad instructionem
legendorum plurimum confert ipsius memoriter uel hanc tenuisse
particulam.’’
127. See Caplan, ‘‘A Medieval Commentary,’’ and especially Ward, Ciceronian
Rhetoric, 188–192 (which deals specifically with the gloss on Ad Her. III.
20–21), and 226–237, on the manuscripts of the commentaries.
128. Caplan, ‘‘A Medieval Commentary,’’ 265.
129. Leclercq, Love of Learning, 73.
130. Edited by Rossi, Clavis universalis, 286–289. I worked from the Huntington
Library copy of the first edition of Fenix. The work (minus its preface) was
translated from a French version into English by Robert Copland, a pupil of
Wynkyn de Worde, and printed in London around 1545 (¼ STC 24112).
131. Rossi, Clavis universalis, 289.
132. In the form in which it came to be attached to later medieval Bibles, the fully
alphabetized index became a sort of generalized dictionary of Biblical Hebrew,
into which Jerome’s original work was incorporated. It is described, and
attributed to Stephen Langton, by Light, ‘‘Versions et re´visions du texte
biblique,’’ 85–86. On Jerome’s knowledge of Hebrew, his work on the compi-
lations, and his astonishingly accurate concording memory, see CHB, vol. 2,
91–101 especially.
133. Jerome, Preface to Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum (CCSL 72, 59.
11–13): ‘‘et rei ipsius utilitate conmotus [var. nouitate conmotus], singula per
ordinem scripturam uolumina percucurri, et uetus aedificium noua cura