Thomas Aquinas and the Rehabilitation of the Image: A Context for the Development of Medieval Drama

Abstract

“Rememoratijf or mynding signes” (Pecock’s words)1 were viewed by Reginald Pecock and his contemporaries as aids to the frail memory—aids perhaps even more essential than “devoute writings.” As such, fourteenth- and fifteenth-century defenses of both images and drama frequently turn on the Aristotelian notion of the necessity of sensibilia, especially “seable signer,”2 to the process of understanding (and devotion). Plays, especially the Corpus Christi plays of Christ’s Passion, were viewed as “quick images” or “quick books” uniquely able to jog the mind to spiritual understanding.