On books and memory
The Middle Ages were rather curious times. Books were rare but readers were even rarer. Here is what Hugues of Saint-Victor wrote in the Didascalion (the art of reading) :
"This (the fact that in those days people knew everything by heart) is the reason why in those days there were so many wise men that they wrote more books than we are able to read."
Nowadays, the situation is the same. They are more books written and published than anyone could read. Last fall in France more than 700 novels and a few hundred essays were published... Does it mean that we live in a time of wisdom and knowledge ? I doubt it. The thing is that back in the Middle Ages, writing was expensive. Not everyone had access to velum. Only what seemed worth writting, that is remembering, was recorded in books. It had to be true lore (historical, religious, scientific) or beauty (poetry : epic, cansons, etc). There was a great control over what was copied ou written : little mediocrity was written, almost none. The consequence is that everything that was written was worth reading.
Nowadays, everyone can write and writes. You do not need to know something or how to tell or to compose to fill hundreds of pages and submit it to publishers who are in need of selling what they publish, were it bad, or even very bad.
The increase of books published does not therefore mean an increase of wisdom, but just an increase of products available. There are more books but less texts. Most of the books are just paper with caracters on their pages. There is nothing to read, no food for the mind, nothing worth "une heure de peine" and all the more remembering.
Same consequence, different cause.
You cannot judge a time from the number of books published, but you could from the texts living in the memories. In his teachings, Hugues of Saint-Victor prescribed first to learn how to memorize... You only hear what you understand and you only understand what you can and will remember.
Our time usually teaches a strange ars oblivionalis as if memory were standing on the way to knowing and thinking. The remedy to our time should be this pastiche of a latin proverb :
Memento memori !
The Middle Ages were rather curious times. Books were rare but readers were even rarer. Here is what Hugues of Saint-Victor wrote in the Didascalion (the art of reading) :
"This (the fact that in those days people knew everything by heart) is the reason why in those days there were so many wise men that they wrote more books than we are able to read."
Nowadays, the situation is the same. They are more books written and published than anyone could read. Last fall in France more than 700 novels and a few hundred essays were published... Does it mean that we live in a time of wisdom and knowledge ? I doubt it. The thing is that back in the Middle Ages, writing was expensive. Not everyone had access to velum. Only what seemed worth writting, that is remembering, was recorded in books. It had to be true lore (historical, religious, scientific) or beauty (poetry : epic, cansons, etc). There was a great control over what was copied ou written : little mediocrity was written, almost none. The consequence is that everything that was written was worth reading.
Nowadays, everyone can write and writes. You do not need to know something or how to tell or to compose to fill hundreds of pages and submit it to publishers who are in need of selling what they publish, were it bad, or even very bad.
The increase of books published does not therefore mean an increase of wisdom, but just an increase of products available. There are more books but less texts. Most of the books are just paper with caracters on their pages. There is nothing to read, no food for the mind, nothing worth "une heure de peine" and all the more remembering.
Same consequence, different cause.
You cannot judge a time from the number of books published, but you could from the texts living in the memories. In his teachings, Hugues of Saint-Victor prescribed first to learn how to memorize... You only hear what you understand and you only understand what you can and will remember.
Our time usually teaches a strange ars oblivionalis as if memory were standing on the way to knowing and thinking. The remedy to our time should be this pastiche of a latin proverb :
Memento memori !
posted by Cercamon at 3:00 PM
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