The Book of Memory
Page 73
420
Notes to pp. 195–197
cose bene disporre, e diritamente voler fare, s`ı fa bisogno di saper favellare . . .
che senza favella sarebbe la bontà sua come un tesoro riposto sotto terra . . .
Giaàbbiamo veduto della prima cosa, che al dicitore fa bisogno di sapere, cioè
come ha a imparare di favellare perfettamente in cioè, che a te ho mostrato
qual è buona, qual è composta, qual eòrnata, e qual eòrdinata favella . . . Or ti
voglio mostrare della seconda cosa, che fa bisogno al dicitore di sapere,
acciocchè perfettamente dica la sua dicer´ıa, cioeòme la sua dicer´ıa si reca a
memoria, acciocchè quando la dice, l’abbia bene a mente, perocchè niuno la
direbbe bene, se quando la dice, bene a mente non l’avesse.’’ Classici Italiani
(Milan, 1808), 344–345; in this edition the appendix on ars memorativa is at
343–356. Compare Bono Giamboni, Fiore di rettorica, 1. 12–15 and 82. 1–6.
C H A P T E R 5
1. Often
quoted, the sermon is found in Mynors, Durham Cathedral
Manuscripts, no. 59; see David Diringer, The Book Before Printing, 206–207.
2. Jurgen Miethke, ‘‘Marsilius und Ockham: Publikum und Leser,’’ esp.
548–549; the composition of III Dialogus is discussed by Miethke in
Ockhams Weg, 121–125.
3. On private book-collecting and ownership, see the chapter by Roberto Weiss
in The English Library Before 1700, 112–135. One should remember, however,
that some members of the lay aristocracy always owned a few books; see Riche´,
‘‘Les Bibliothèques de trois aristocrats carolingiens,’’ and Education and
Culture, 184–265. A good earlier book discussing the matter of lay literacy in
the later Middle Ages is Thompson, The Literacy of the Laity in the Middle
Ages. One should therefore more accurately speak in terms of a late-medieval
extension of private book ownership rather than its beginning, though the
collecting of books simply to own them or to have a scholar’s library, as
Petrarch’s was, is a late medieval phenomenon. Of book production and book
selling at this time there are a large number of studies; Burrow, Medieval
Writers and Their Work, provides a summary account as does De Hamel, A
History of Illuminated Manuscripts. All considerations of this matter should,
however, keep in mind the studies of Deanesly, such as ‘‘Vernacular Books,’’
which remind us that, while a few individuals owned many books, most, even
those who might afford them, owned very few, if any.
4. I Dial. ii, 23 (1494 edn., fo. 14): ‘‘tu autem scis quod nullum habeo predicto-
rum et forte illi de ordine nolunt mihi communicare predicta.’’
5. III Dial. i, prol. (1494 edn., fo. 181): ‘‘Ideo si tibi videtur de prefatis me
nullatenus intromittam: maxime cum ad libros necessarios non valeam (vt
estimo) peruenire. Disc: Timor non te retrahat memoratus.’’
6. III Dial. ii, prol. (1494 edn., fos. 229v–230): ‘ Magis: Eorum perfecta cognitio,
que tractanda commemoras ex libris sacre theologie vtriusque iuris canonici
videlicet et ciuilis philosophie moralis et ex hystoriis romanorum atque
imperatorum et summorum pontificum et aliarum gentium esset patentius
extrahenda et solidius munienda. De quibus solummodo bibliam et decretum
Notes to pp. 197–199
421
cum quattuor libris decretalium spem habeo obtinendi. Quare ne forsitan
opus imperfectum immo ridiculosum faciamus videtur consultius desisten-
dum. Disc: Quis his diebus opus perfectum facere nequeamus cum de materia
tam necessaria . . . vtile erat penitus non silere vt alios copiam librorum
habentes ad faciendum perfecta opera prouocemus.’’
7. Discussed by Miethke, Ockhams Weg, 121–122, and esp. notes 455 and 457. The
chronicler reporting this event does not say that Albert saw a written copy of
Ockham’s work (as a nineteenth-century edition had it in error), but that
Albert was persuaded to support Ludwig against the Clementine interdict
because Ludwig supported his position (‘‘innititur’’) with arguments drawn
from a ‘‘dialogus’’ which Ockham had produced (‘‘edidit’’) in the form of a
student asking questions and a master responding (‘‘sub forma discipuli
querentis et magistri respondentis’’).
8. Many otherwise excellent, careful studies reflect such assumptions. For exam-
ple, Richard and Mary Rouse have said that memory ceased to be emphasized
after the twelfth century, and in an otherwise fine introduction to his edition
of Bartolomaeus Anglicus’s encyclopedia, R. J. Long refers to a thirteenth-
century ‘‘scissors-and-paste’’ method of composing. Several scholars have
supposed the widespread use of parchment slips; Antoine Dondaine pictures
Thomas Aquinas pausing frequently in mid-composition to check quotations
in his books; other scholars, analyzing the sources of florilegial compendia,
have presumed it to be ‘‘self-evident’’ that a scholar compiling in a particular
city must have had physically available to him where he was working copies of
the works he cites, that he must be ‘‘quoting directly or paraphrasing’’ from a
text physically before him, and that manuscript evidence, had it survived,
could definitively tell us which written source it was. I mention these fre-
quently made comments only to indicate how even the best of modern
scholars have assumed that medieval ones worked from books exactly in our
manner, though in much less convenient circumstances.
9. Cambridge Medieval History (short edition), 527. Roy Rosenstein has called
attention to the crusader song of Jaufre Rudel, which clearly shows how this
song was used to disseminate the Crusade; the relevant lines (29–34) are as
follows: ‘‘Senes breu de pargamina / tramet lo vers que chantam / plan et en
lenga romana / a N Hugon Brun per Fillol’’ (‘‘Without a parchment docu-
ment / I send the song we sing, / smoothly and in Romance language, / to Lord
Hugh Brun, by Fillol’’).
10. Deferrari, ‘‘Augustine’s Method of Composing,’’ 103.
11. The circumstances surrounding the first making of eyeglasses were analyzed by
Rosen, ‘ The Invention of Eyeglasses.’’ Friar Giordano announced that ‘‘it is not
yet twenty years since the art of making eyeglasses was discovered . . . I saw the
one who first discovered and made them, and spoke with him ‘ [E disse il lettore: io
vidi colui che prima la trovò e fece, e favellaigli].’ This sermon is XV in Delcorno’s
edition, preached in Santa Maria Novella, Wednesday, February 23, 1305 (1306).
12. Ward, Cicero’s Rhetorica, 59–60, but especially ‘‘Quintilian and the Rhetorical
Revolution.’’ It is important to remember that the authors of most medieval
422
Notes to pp. 199–201
commentaries of the twelfth century were in fact mainly compilers of a pre-
existing store; a number of studies have brought this out, but one might
especially mention those of Beryl Smalley. After the eleventh century it was
more usual for the glossator to sign his contribution, perhaps because – in the
cases of both the Bible and the law – an ordinary gloss had been compiled from<
br />
the mainly anonymous stock of glosses that existed before.
13. See Rouse and Rouse, ‘‘Statim invenire.’’
14. Occasionally, especially in late manuscripts, one or two individuals are shown
with pens – these are the reporters, those ‘‘pencils’ of the Middle Ages.
15. In Familiares, I I I , i, Petrarch recounts a conversation he had in Avignon with
Richard de Bury, regarding the nature of ‘‘ultima Thule,’’ and says of him that
he was ‘‘not ignorant of letters’’; the remark is patronizing, of course, but no
more than that.
16. I , 27–29; 14–15. On Hugh of St. Victor’s diagrammatic ladders, see my
discussion of De archa Noe, in Chapter 7. Bury calls the books burned in
the fire of the Alexandrine library ‘‘scrinia veritatis’’ (VII, 107; 59, lines 9–10),
which he recalls ‘‘with a tearful pen’ (VII, 106; 58, lines 8–9). Later, invoking
the motif of translatio studii, he describes how learned Greece (especially
Aristotle) transferred to its own treasuries all the ancient wisdom of Egypt
(X, 160; 92, lines 3–4). I have used the translation of E. C. Thomas, slightly
edited as indicated in brackets.
17. V I I I , 126; 69, line 16: ‘‘paradisum mundi Parisius.’’
18. V I I I , 128: ‘‘apertis thesauris et sacculorum corrigiis resolutis, pecuniam laeto
corde dispersimus, atque libros impretiabiles luto redemimus et arena’’; 71,
lines 4–7.
19. This has been estimated at 1,500 books; the largest documented collections
made by other men of Richard de Bury’s time were on the order of 100 or so.
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, a most avid collector of manuscripts a
century later may have collected as many as 500; he gave Oxford about 300
of those. Only 4 surviving books have been identified as belonging to Richard
de Bury, all returned to St. Albans after his death (whence he had bought
them – perhaps extorted them – in the first place). See Wormald and Wright,
The English Library, esp. 113–115.
20. I V , 58; 29–30: ‘‘Primum oportet volumen cum Ezechiele comedere, quo
venter memoriae dulcescat intrinsecus . . . Sic nostra natura in nostris famil-
iaribus operante latenter, auditores accurrunt benevoli, sicut adamas trahit
ferrum nequaquam invite. O virtus infinita librorum iacent Parisius vel
Athenis simulque resonant in Britannia et in Roma! Quiescentes quippe
moventur, dum ipsis loca sua tenentibus, auditorum intellectibus circum-
quaque feruntur.’’
21. V I I I , 134; 74–75: ‘ A corpore sacrae legis divinae usque ad quaternum sophisma-
tum hesternorum, nihil istos praeterire potuit scrutatores. Si in fonte fidei
Christianae, curia sacrosancta Romana, sermo devotus insonuit, vel si pro novis
causis quaestio ventilabatur extranea, si Parisiensis soliditas . . . si Anglicana
perspicacitas . . . quicquam ad augementum scientiae vel declarationem fidei
Notes to pp. 202–204
423
promulgabat, hoc statim nostris recens infundebatur auditibus nullo denigratum
seminiverbio nulloque nugace corrumptum, sed de praelo purissimi torcularis in
nostrae memoriae dolia defaecandum transibat.’’ Seminiverbio is from the
Vulgate of Acts 17, 18 (as Thomas’s note indicates); denigrare is a synonym of
detergere, ‘ to wipe clean,’ as Du Cange notes, s.v.; corrumpere in the context of
literary texts means ‘ falsify’’ or ‘ spoil’ (Lewis and Short, s.v.). Anyone who has
worked with medieval manuscripts will recognize the aptness of Bury’s fears; I am
reminded of Chaucer’s warning to Adam, his scrivener, not to ‘‘wryten newe’ his
Troilus.
22. Much has ably been written on the content and methods of medieval lectio in
both monastic and university settings; among the best studies are those of
Smalley, The Study of the Bible; Evans, Language and Logic of the Bible;
Clanchy, Abelard; de Lubac, Exe´gèse me´die´vale; Chenu, Introduction à St.
Thomas; and Leclercq, The Love of Learning. In Metalogicon, I. 24, John of
Salisbury defines the distinction very clearly, though his terminology for it is
somewhat different from the more common one I have adopted here: ‘‘The
word ‘reading’ [legendi] is equivocal. It may refer either to the activity of
teaching and being taught, or to the occupation of studying written things by
oneself [ad scrutinium meditantis; line 10]’’ (trans. McGarry, 65–66). He calls
the former praelectio, following Quintilian (Inst. orat., II. v. 4), and the latter
lectio. He who aspires to philosophy, says John of Salisbury, must learn
reading, organized study, and meditation, together with the exercise of good
works (‘‘apprehendat lectionem, doctrinam, et meditationem, cum exercitio
boni operis’’; I. 24. 1–2).
23. Didascalicon, I I I , 7–10; English trans. J. Taylor, 92–93.
24. This paraphrase–translation is of De archa Noe, I I , v.
25. Frances Yates notes this reputation in her 1955 essay on ‘‘The Ciceronian Art of
Memory’’; the suggestion was adopted enthusiastically by Rossi, Clavis uni-
versalis, 292–294.
26. Petrarch’s veneration for Augustine is discussed fully by Courcelle, Les
Confessions, 329–351. The story of Petrarch’s sortilege on the summit of
Mont Ventoux is in Familiares, IV. 1. There have been a number of discerning
studies recently of this famous incident; see Greene, The Light In Troy,
104–111, and Kahn, ‘‘The Figure of the Reader.’’
27. Petrarch writes in the prologue: ‘‘So, little Book, I bid you flee the haunts of
men and be content to stay with me.’’ He may have begun Secretum at
Vaucluse, but the main part was added in Milan, where Petrarch lived from
1353 to 1358; see H. Baron, Petrarch’s Secretum.
28. Secretum, Dialogue Two; translated Draper (with my alterations), 97–100,
102. The Latin text is in Petrarca, Prose, 120–122, 126.
29. Petrucci, 38–57; see also Pellegrin and Billanovich, ‘‘Un Manuscrit de Cice
ŕon
annote´ par Pe´trarque’ (BL MS. Harley 2493). Like most scribes, Petrarch used
a different hand for glosses than for the main text.
30. Penetralia means ‘‘recess’’ or ‘‘interior’ generally, but specifically ‘‘the inner-
most chamber of a shrine or temple’ (Lewis and Short, s.v. penetralium), an
424
Notes to pp. 205–207
image that links up with that of memory as scrinium, and also with the use of
the idealized Temple as a meditational device common in monastic medita-
tional practice. Italian penetrali still carries the Latin meanings.
31. See Leclercq, 73ff.; as Leclercq demonstrates eloquently the model of rumina-
tion is at the core of monastic reading. Ruminare was used metaphorically to
mean ‘‘meditate’’ in pagan writing also; the earliest citation in Ox. Lat. Dict. is
third century BC (s.v. rumino). Quintilian, though he does not actually use the
verb, says that meditation (by which he means memorizing) is like rechewing
one’s food (Inst. orat., XI. ii. 41). See also West, ‘‘Rumination in Bede’s
Account of Caedmon.’’
32. Moralia in Job, I . 33: ‘‘In nobismetipsis namque debemus transformare quo
d
legimus; ut cum per auditum se animus excitat, ad operandum quod audierit
uita concurrat.’’
33. Didascalicon, V . 5: ‘‘cuius sententias quasi fructus quosdam dulcissimos
legendo carpimus, tractando ruminamus’’; Buttimer, 103, lines 26–27.
Notice Hugh’s use of the gerundive form of tractare, in a context similar to
that in which Ockham also uses it. It is a scholastic use, ‘‘tracting’ for the
process of making ‘‘tracts’’ by mentally collating extracts during meditational
composition (recall the account of Thomas Aquinas’s composing habits –
I have more to say about this whole matter in Chapter 6). On the genre called
tractatus, see Kristeller, ‘‘The Scholar and His Public,’’ in Medieval Aspects of
Renaissance Learning, esp. 4–12.
34. Regula Pastoralis, I I I . 12.124–125. Gregory is commenting on two passages
about stomach pains (plaga uentris), Prov. 20:27, 30. Gregory appears to have
suffered from stomach troubles, as he apologized to his congregation at the
start of one of his sermons on Luke (no. 21; PL 76. 1169).
35. Didascalicon, I I I . 11: ‘‘hoc etiam saepe replicare et de ventre memoriae ad
palatum revocare necesse est’’; Buttimer, 61, lines 1–2. Hugh cites Gregory,
Regula pastoralis, III. xii, in this text.
36. Augustine, Sermones, 352. 1 (PL 39. 1550): ‘‘Unde cum sermonem ad vestram
Charitatem non praepararemus, hinc nobis esse tractandum Domino imper-
ante cognovimus. Volebamus enim hodierna die vos in ruminatione permit-
tere . . . Praestet ergo Dominus ipse Deus noster, et nobis virium sufficientiam,
et vobis utilem audientiam’’; trans. Hill, vol. 10, 137. The lector’s error and
Augustine’s consequent need to improvise his sermon was not a unique event
for him: cf. the start of his Commentary on Psalm 138 (139), where again he says
he is departing from what he had prepared to accommodate a lector’s mistake
(cited from note 1 to Hill’s translation of Sermon 352). The commentaries on
the Psalms began as sermons; see Boulding’s preface to her translation of the
Enarrationes in Psalmis.
37. Ecclestiastical History, I V , 24. West has discussed this passage and its context in
the monastic traditions of ruminatio in ‘‘Rumination in Bede’s Account of