The Book of Memory

by Mary Carruthers

  And, as Geoffrey of Vinsauf says, repeating a clicheóf long standing, the

  memory-cell needs to be delighted as it works, lest too much heavy food

  give it indigestion. The emotion of surprise in itself makes the page

  effective in memory, whatever the meanings we may later give to its

  many forms.

  Appendix A

  H U G H O F S T . VI C T O R : ‘‘ T H E T H R E E B E S T

  M E M O R Y - A I D S F O R L E A R N I N G H I S T O R Y ’’ 1

  My child, knowledge is a treasury and your heart is its strongbox. As you

  study all of knowledge, you store up for yourselves good treasures, immor-

  tal treasures, incorruptible treasures, which never decay nor lose the beauty

  of their brightness. In the treasure-house of wisdom are various sorts of

  wealth, and many filing-places in the store-house of your heart. In one

  place is put gold, in another silver, in another precious jewels. Their orderly

  arrangement is clarity of knowledge. Dispose and separate each single thing

  into its own place, this into its and that into its, so that you may know what

  has been placed here and what there. Confusion is the mother of ignorance

  and forgetfulness, but orderly arrangement illuminates the intelligence and

  secures memory.

  You see how a money-changer who has unsorted coins divides his one

  pouch into several compartments, just as a cloister embraces many separate

  cells inside. Then, having sorted the coins and separated out each type of

  money in turn, he puts them all to be kept in their proper places, so that the

  distinctiveness of his compartments may keep the assortment of his materials

  from getting mixed up, just as it supports their separation. 2 Additionally, you

  observe in his display of money-changing, how his ready hand without

  faltering follows wherever the commanding nod of a customer has caused

  it to extend, and quickly, without delay, it brings into the open, separately

  and without confusion, everything that he either may have wanted to receive

  or promised to give out. And it would provide onlookers with a spectacle

  silly and absurd enough, if, while one and the same money-bag should pour

  forth so many varieties without muddle, this same bag, its mouth being

  opened, should not display on its inside an equivalent number of separate

  compartments. And so this particular separation into distinct places, which

  I have described, at one and the same time eliminates for the onlookers any

  339

  340

  The Book of Memory

  mystery in the action, and, for those doing it, an obstacle to their ability to

  perform it.

  Now as we just said by way of preface, a classifying-system for material

  makes it manifest to the mind. Truly such manifestation of matters both

  illuminates the soul when it perceives them, and confirms them in mem-

  ory. Return, therefore, child, to your heart and consider how you should

  dispose and collect in it the precious treasures of wisdom, so that you may

  learn about its individual repositories, and when for safekeeping you place

  something in them, dispose it in such an order that when your reason asks

  for it, you are easily able to find it by means of your memory and under-

  stand it by means of your intellect, and bring it forth by means of your

  eloquence. I am going to propose to you a particular method for such

  classification.

  Matters that are learned are classified in the memory in three ways; by

  number, location, and occasion. Thus all the things which you may have

  heard you will both readily capture in your intellect and retain for a long

  time in your memory, if you have learned to classify them according to

  these three categories. I will demonstrate one at a time the manner in which

  each should be used.

  The first means of classifying is by number. Learn to construct in your

  mind a line [of numbers] numbered from one on, in however long a

  sequence you want, extended as it were before the eyes of your mind.

  When you hear any number at all called out, become accustomed to

  quickly turning your mind there [on your mental line] where its sum is

  enclosed, as though to that specific point at which in full this number is

  completed. For example, when you hear ten, think of the tenth place, or

  when twelve, think of the twelfth, so that you conceive of the whole

  according to its outer extent [along the line], and likewise for the other

  [numbers].3 Make this conception and this way of imagining it practiced

  and habitual, so that you conceive of the limit and extent of all numbers

  visually, just as though [they were] placed in particular places. And listen to

  how this mental visualization may be useful for learning.

  Suppose for example that I wish to learn the psalter word for word by

  heart. I proceed thus: first I consider how many Psalms there are. There are

  150. I learn them all in order so that I know which is the first, which the

  second, which the third, and so on. I then place them all by order in my

  heart along my [mental] numerical line, and one at a time I designate them

  to the seats where they are disposed in the grid, while at the same time,

  accompanied by voicing or cogitation, I listen and observe closely until

  each becomes to me of a size equivalent to one glance of my memory:

  Appendix A

  341

  ‘‘Blessed is the man,’’ with respect to the first Psalm; ‘‘Why have the gentiles

  raged,’’ with respect to the second; ‘‘Why, O Lord, are they multiplied,’’

  with respect to the third; this [much] is kept in the first, second, and third

  compartments. And then I imprint the result of my mental effort by the

  vigilant concentration of my heart so that, when asked, without hesitation I

  may answer, either in forward order, or by skipping one or several, or in

  reverse order and recited backwards according to my completely mastered

  scheme of places, what is the first, what the second, what indeed the

  twenty-seventh, the forty-eighth, or whatever Psalm it should be.4 In this

  manner [disputants] demonstrate [that] the scriptures confirm their own

  arguments when, as they are about to use the authority of some one Psalm,

  they say this is written in the 63rd, this in the 75th, or whatever other Psalm,

  fetching forth for reference not its name but its number. For surely, you do

  not think that those who wish to cite some one of the Psalms have turned

  over the manuscript pages, so that starting their count from the beginning

  they could figure out what number in the series of Psalms each might have?

  The labor in such a task would be too great. Therefore they have in their

  heart a powerful mental device, and they have retained it in memory, for

  they have learned the number and the order of each single item in the series.

  Having learned the Psalms [as a whole], I then devise the same sort of

  scheme for each separate Psalm, starting with the beginning words of the

  verses just as I did for the whole psalter starting with the first words of the

  psalms, and I can thereafter easily retain in my heart the whole series one

  verse at a time; first by dividing and marking off the book by [whole]

  Psalms a
nd then each Psalm by verses, I have reduced a large amount of

  material to such conciseness and brevity. And this [method] in fact can

  readily be seen in the Psalms or in other books containing obvious

  divisions. When however the reading is in an unbroken series, it is neces-

  sary to do this artificially, so that, to be sure according to the convenience

  of the reader, [at those places] where it seems [to him] most suitable, first

  the whole piece is divided into a fixed number of sections, and these again

  into others, these into yet others, until the whole length of material is so

  parceled up that the mind can easily retain it in single units. For the

  memory always rejoices in both brevity of length and paucity of number,

  and therefore it is necessary, when the sequence of your reading tends

  towards length, that it first be divided into a few units, so that what the

  mind could not comprehend in a single expanse it can comprehend at least

  in a number, and again, when later the more moderate number of items is

  sub-divided into many, it may be aided in each case by the principle of

  paucity or brevity.

  342

  The Book of Memory

  So you see the value to learning a numerical division-scheme; now see

  and consider of what value for the same thing is the classification-system

  according to location. Have you never noticed how a boy has greater

  difficulty impressing upon his memory what he has read if he often changes

  his copy [of a text] between readings? Why should this be unless it is

  because, when the image-receiving power of the heart is directed outward

  through the senses into so many shapes from diverse books, no specific

  image can remain within [the inner senses] by means of which a memory-

  image may be fixed? For when something is brought together to be

  fashioned into an image from all [the copies] indiscriminately, one super-

  imposed upon another, and always the earlier being wiped away by later

  ones, nothing personal or familiar remains which by use and practice can

  be clearly possessed. Therefore it is a great value for fixing a memory-image

  that when we read books, we strive to impress on our memory through the

  power of forming our mental images not only the number and order of

  verses or ideas, but at the same time the color, shape, position, and place-

  ment of the letters, where we have seen this or that written, in what part, in

  what location (at the top, the middle, or the bottom) we saw it positioned,

  in what color we observed the trace of the letter or the ornamented surface

  of the parchment. Indeed I consider nothing so useful for stimulating the

  memory as this; that we also pay attention carefully to those circumstances

  of things which can occur accidentally and externally, so that for example,

  together with the appearance and quality or location of the places in which

  we heard one thing or the other we recall also the face and habits of the

  people from whom we learned this and that, and, if there are any, the things

  that accompany the performance of a certain activity. All these things

  indeed are rudimentary in nature, but of a sort beneficial for boys.

  After the classifications by number and place follows the classification by

  occasions, that is: what was done earlier and what later, how much earlier

  and how much later, by how many years, months, days this precedes that

  and that follows this other. This classification is relevant in a situation

  when, according to the varying nature of the occasions on which we learned

  something, at a later time we may be able to recall to our mind a memory of

  the content, as we remember that one occasion was at night and another by

  day, one in winter, another in summer, one in cloudy weather, another in

  sunshine. All these things truly we have composed as a kind of prelude [to

  our learning], providing the basics to children, lest we, disdaining these

  most basic elements of our studies, start little by little to ramble incoher-

  ently. Indeed the whole usefulness of education consists only in the

  memory of it, for just as having heard something does not profit one

  Appendix A

  343

  who cannot understand, likewise having understood is not valuable to one

  who either will not or cannot remember. Indeed it was profitable to have

  listened only insofar as it caused us to have understood, and to have

  understood insofar as it was retained. But these are as it were basics for

  knowledge, which, if they are firmly impressed in your memory, open up

  all the rest readily. We have written out this [list of names, dates, and

  places] for you in the following pages, disposed in the order in which we

  wish them to be implanted in your soul through memory, so that whatever

  afterwards we build upon it may be firm.

  All exposition of divine Scripture is drawn forth according to three

  senses: literal, allegorical, and tropological, or moral. The literal is the

  narrative of history, expressed in the basic meaning of the letter. Allegory is

  when by means of this event in the story, which we find in the literal

  meaning, another action is signified, belonging to past or present or future

  time. Tropology is when in that action which we hear was done, we

  recognize what we should be doing. Whence it rightly receives the name

  ‘‘tropology,’’ that is, converted speech or replicated discourse, for without a

  doubt we turn the word of a story about others to our own instruction

  when, having read of the deeds of others, we conform our living to their

  example.

  But now we have in hand history, as it were the foundation of all

  knowledge, the first to be laid out together in memory. But because, as

  we said, the memory delights in brevity, yet the events of history are nearly

  infinite, it is necessary for us, from among all of that material, to gather

  together a kind of brief summary – as it were the foundation of a founda-

  tion, that is a first foundation – which the soul can most easily comprehend

  and the memory retain. There are three matters on which the knowledge of

  past actions especially depends, that is, the persons who performed the

  deeds, the places in which they were performed, and the time at which they

  occurred. Whoever holds these three by memory in his soul will find that

  he has built a good foundation for himself, onto which he can assemble

  afterwards anything by reading and lecture without difficulty and rapidly

  take it in and retain it for a long time. However, in so doing it is necessary

  to retain it in memory and by diligent retracing to have it customary and

  well known, so that his heart may be ready to put in place everything he has

  heard, and apply those classification-techniques which he will have learned

  now, to all things that he may hear afterwards by a suitable distribution

  according to their place, date, and person.

  While [the circumstances of] time and number measure off length in the

  chest of memory, [the aspect of] place extends the area in width, so that the

  344

  The Book of Memory

  rest of the material may then be disposed in its locations. First, therefore,

  we will place in
order our persons together with their dates, extending them

  from the beginning along the length of the time-line, [and] we will mark

  off our places, however many will adequately allow for the full extent of our

  summary, gathered up out of all the material. Now indeed endeavor to

  imprint in this fashion in your memory the matters which are written out

  below, according to the method and diagram for learning by heart dem-

  onstrated to you earlier, so that by experience you can know the truth of my

  words, when you perceive how valuable it is to devote study and labor not

  just to having heard the lectures on the scriptures or to discussion, but to

  memory-work.

  The creation of nature was completed in six days and the renewal of man

  will be achieved in six stages. The world was made before time began,

  fashioned in six days, put in order in the first three days, and fitted out and

  decorated in the three following. On the first day was made light, on the

  second the firmament between the waters above and the waters below. On

  the third day the waters which were under the firmament were gathered

  together in one place, and dry land appeared, and produced green plants

  and those which make fruits. Behold the arrangement of the four elements.

  The heaven was stretched out above, next the air was made clear, next the

  waters were gathered together in one place, then the land was revealed. Its

  equipping and decoration followed.5 On the fourth day lights – the sun,

  moon, and stars – were created for ornamenting the heaven. On the fifth

  day fish were created from the waters, and birds, birds for decoration of the

  air, fish for equipping the waters. On the sixth day were made the beasts of

  burden, wild beasts, and the rest of living creatures, for ornament of the dry

  lands.

  At the very last, in fulfillment of all, humankind was created, Adam and

  Eve. When he was 130 years old, Adam engendered Seth. And Adam lived

  after he engendered Seth 800 years. Thus it is found in the Hebrew.

  However the authors of the Septuagint place 230 years before the birth of

  Seth, 700 after. And in all the period of Adam’s life was 930 years. And

  likewise the others follow along in the columns of the diagram according to

  the true disposition of the Hebrew.