Memory and the ethics of reading

Abstract

There is no questioning the fact that written material came increasingly into use from the eleventh century on; the reason that more manucripts survive from the later Middle Ages is because more were made. The making of scholarly compendia is a response to this increase, and the larger educated, book-needing public that created it. There is an increase not only in bulk, but in the complexity of indexing and classifying schemes that one does not see before the late eleventh century, and it is evident that, though they derive from mnemonic principles in use for centuries, they seem much too technical to have served directly as a mnemonic – for them to be useful as memory devices, a user would need some prior training and familiarity with basic mnemonic principles. But these facts do not seem to have altered significantly the value placed on memory training in medieval education, nor to have changed the deliberate cultivation of memoria . Medieval culture remained profoundly memorial in nature, despite the increased use and availability of books for reasons other than simple technological convenience. The primary factor in its conservation lies in the identification of memory with creative thinking, learning (invention and recollection), and the ability to make judgments (prudence or wisdom). Writing, as we have seen, was always thought to be a memory aid, not a substitute for it. Children learned to write as a part of reading/memorizing, inscribing their memories in the act of inscribing their tablets. Writing itself was judged to be an ethical activity in monastic culture. A twelfth-century sermon says, in part: “Let us consider then how we may become scribes of the Lord. The parchment on which we write for Him is a pure conscience, whereon all our good works are noted by the pen of memory.” The orator then proceeds to moralize the various implements of writing: pumice, knife, pen, ruler, chalk, ink, and so on.