The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, Series Number 70)

A dense read, but a good one. Carruthers helps us understand how seemingly mechanical mnemotechnics were really the cornerstone of a whole way of approaching thought, imagination, and creativity. If the past is a foreign country, then this book is a guided tour through an exotic landscape.

All books by Mary Carruthers are great overviews of the topic and show a few techniques at memorization. The purpose of the book is not to teach the methods but rather place it in a cultural and historical perspective.

I found the book very thorough and academic. However, that is what I wanted. It gives a great introduction to memory-techniques in medieval culture. And memory in general.I would recommend to read this book first and than  The Art of Memory . For I found that book a bit to difficult to start with.

This book is very useful, but "the craft of thought" is much better! Reading this book is a pleasure.Imagination really depends on memory!

Great book for serious memory palace students!!!!!

A great book about the history of memory training- comprehensive!

just what I needed

In this review, I intend to describe what the book is, who it is for, and its pluses and shortcomings. Then, I'd like to recommend a few companion volumes. Finally, I want to answer the complaint of one reviewer who claimed that Frances Yates book "On Memory" is better.Mary Carruthers did the world a tremendous service by writing the book. What she does is investigate the world of pre-modern memory in 500 pages beginning with the Ancients and then using that background as a base from which to cover medieval mnemonics-which both borrowed from and added to ancient systems of memory. She also discusses the role of memory as an art and a part of virtue, how the medievals perceived it, a brief set of theories on how memory works, memory's effects on composition and books, and the like, mnemonic-architectonics (I'll explain this term in a following section), and, finally, the "end" of memory as an art. Some of the work is conjecture, but most of it is simply solid historical material, which Mrs. Carruthers carefully documents and references. The work is, for the most part, divided according to subject rather than time period. Three appendices and two indices, one general and one of the manuscripts referenced, are included as well. Several black and white plates are included as well which are generally reproductions historical examples that are examined. As for the work's physical characteristics, I have a paperbound edition, but it is still quite sturdy.This book is useful for a variety of people. Obviously, the student of medieval thought is one target. However, for those wishing to educate themselves about a well-nigh forgotten area of knowledge, which was was considered absolutely vital, this work is a godsend. Additionally, for the person who wants to learn how to memorize things systematically, the book provides descriptions of several methods for doing so and breaks down the various systems into their common components. Of especial interest is the system of mnemonic-architectonics, in which one memorizes a physical place, such as a building (or "builds" an imaginary one in one's mind ["castles in the air", anyone?])and uses it as a place to store information in an orderly fashion. The systems described are not simple mnemonic tricks but are extraordinarily useful tools that were vital in an age before the printing press and were (and could still be) invaluable aids in composition. The authoress gives an extended description of how this was done. The copious references also make it possible to go directly to the primary sources, which is a tremendous help.As for the work's shortcomings, there are very few, in my opinion. The biggest problem is that it is rather dry. However, this is to be expected as it is academic. However, it manages to stay on subject well and deliver a great deal of information. A few digressions into literary theory may or may not interest the reader and some of the conclusions she draws using modern literary theory are debatable. The only other difficulty is that some may disagree with a few of the conjectures of the authoress regarding memory and the medieval mind. Nevertheless, the presence of conjecture in a field that is relatively unexplored is inevitable. Other than that, it is a solid, well-documented work.There are several works that may work as valuable accompaniments to this book. A translation of some of the primary sources referenced is available in a companion volume  The Medieval Craft of Memory: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Material Texts)  and another volume,  The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature)  discusses the role of memory (in detail) in medieval rhetoric, meditation, and other areas of life, particularly in the religious communities. Frances Yates's book on memory is also useful as a sort of broad overview.Finally, I wish to answer an unfair comparison. One previous reviewer claimed that Frances Yates's book, "The Art of Memory" is superior. It is superior only in the sense that it is more readable, at least for the majority of the work. That book is written with a broader audience in mind and has more of a conversational style for recreational reading. However, Yates's specialty in writing tends to lean towards the history of occult movements and the like, and as such, she focuses on these aspects of the history of memory and the medievals don't get all that much space, and, in the end, memory gets pushed off the the side as well. Instead, the thrust of the work is ultimately towards the history of science with a focus on modern science's gnostic and occult roots (she theorizes about the philosopher's stone being the memory, etc, etc). In the last few chapters, the work becomes nearly wholly absorbed in discussions on the hermetic tradition, occultism, and various proto-modern scientists. Yes, it's readable, but readability is not a criterion for excellence save in thrillers and yellow journalism. I didn't find the information to be nearly as valuable or as useful or even as structured as "The Book of Memory". It's not a bad book, but it is much inferior to Mary Carruther's seminal work.

The sub-title of this book is ‘A study of Memory in Medieval culture,’ and a non-medievalist might wonder why should memory be a subject. A little reflection however, reveals the obvious. While Plato’s Academy in Athens was the first educational institution, as it were, for adults, the role for education fell into the arms of the Church, and the reasons were obvious. Firstly, education was a luxury only offered to the aristocracy who could afford tutors for their offspring, and secondly the growth of a Church hierarchy meant that increasingly new novitiates were being drawn from the uneducated laity, which meant that they had to be educated. The first step would be based on oral teaching, as it always had been, but there would come a time when the novitiates would have to be able to read and write. The core text for the Church was obviously the Bible, and then secondly the commentaries, sermons etc., written by the fathers. The hand copying of manuscripts was time consuming, while manuscript material itself was not cheap, and while much was to change with the introduction of printing, but that time was not yet, so what could teachers resort to, but memory training, and the earliest instructions on this had been written by the Roman rhetoricians. Cicero, for example, had written one book entirely based on memory when he did not have access to his library – and if manuscript material as expensive, books were even more so. But by the times of Anselm, and Aquinas, with some training and discipline, memory could be reliable, and it is much easier to carry your memory about with you than a trunk full of expensive books.This book, it should be noted is not a quick read, it is the result of a lot of work. The first challenge that was faced was what was known about memory that could be developed. Plato’s two illustrations in the Theaetetus remained as illustrations, the pre-Socratic poet Simonides discovery that visual memory was more immediate than a verbal memory, led the early rhetoricians to construct memory models, visual images upon which could be aligned a given text, like a speech, so that by recalling the images, one also recalled the text. By the Renaissance we had Memory Palaces, which had moved on from being Mnemonic devices to something else – this is the really the subject of Frances Yate’s ‘The Art of Memory.’ If you read a book about modern memory feats, you will find the phrase, ‘memory palaces.’ But the seminal (Ciceronic) Ad Herrenium drew the distinction between natural memory and artificial memory, and mnemonic techniques of increasing sophistication arose out of the latter, while at the same time, having a positive influence on natural memory’s ability to retain information. Hugh of St Victor had no problem talking about learning the Psalms, in such a way that they could be recited backwards if need be, exemplifies what the human mind can be trained to do if a) there is a need, and b) there is the effort. And this was seen as the norm, certainly in the monasteries. Someone should write a book about this quite remarkable Augustinian Priory that he belonged to, who were able to harmonize faith, reason, and inventiveness for such a long time.Once printing became widespread then Theuth’s warning in the Phaedrus started becoming true, writing in the printed form, was becoming an atrophy for memory.This book not only represents a high standard of scholarship, but I found it so readable. It was written by someone with an genuine empathy for an age that has gone, like CS Lewis’s ‘Discarded image,’ that I actually found it uplifting in an unexpected way. In fact, I was so delighted with it and the whole approach, that I ordered the author’s ‘The Craft of Thought’ and was even more delighted!

Dopo gli studi di P. Rossi e F. Yates, di arte della memoria non si è più sentito parlare (almeno a certi livelli). Questo libro della Carruthers, che si sofferma maggiormente sull'arte in epoca Medievale, non solo riempie un vuoto, visto che gli illustri predecessori si erano molto soffermati sul rinascimento, ma ripropone un campo di indagine affascinante e di grande interesse. Consiglio fortemente il libro e trovo l'edizione digitale in formato kindle comunque leggibile ed ampiamente fruibile.

Questo libro dovrebbe essere obbligatorio dalla prima elementare. L'autore è veramente un uomo che ama quello che fa. Da regalare a chi si vuole bene

I very good book which I decided to buy because I want to have it