Medieval Memory Masters

If the arts of memory faded from sight with the decline of the
Roman empire, they were to rise again across medieval Europe.
However, now they took upon the character of the medieval mind and
hence can now seem fairly alien to our own way of thinking. In
particular, and somewhat harking back to Plato, the memory arts
were now closely associated with the devine. Therefore, the line of
thought that the medieval practioners were taking was to uncover
natural orders which would enable Human memory to operate in
harmony with universal laws. The basic philosophy behind this
impulse - to uncover natural laws - is not dissimilar to our
modern, scientific way of thinking. However, in practice it
manifested during this period in more mystical or even magical ways
of thinking.

A good example of this is the memory system developed by Ramon
Lull, know as Lullism. Lull was a 13th Century Majorcan who spent
his youth working as a troubadour and courtier. After a spiritual
experience whilst on top of Mount Randa, Lull believed he had
perceived the attributes of God and he set out to develop a sort of
elemental cosmology of nature inspired by this experience. At their
heart, Lull's arts are based on the nine attributes of God:
Goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, will, virtue, truth
and glory. Lull claimed that because these concepts were
fundamental to nature, they should form the natural structure for
the study of any subject. Such an interest with paying attention to
the names or attributes of God may sound strange to the modern
mind, but it was similar to the practices of the mystical branches
of both Judaism (the Cabala) and Islam (Sufism) that were
contemporary with Lull. Lullism became ever more complex with
varied diagrams depicting the inter-relationship of these concepts.

At a practical level, Lull believed in two methods for improving
memory. Firstly, medicines, although he does not recommend taking
this route. Exactly what medicines he means are now lost to us, as
is most of the medieval herbalist tradition. The second method was
frequent meditation upon what one wishes to remember. In other
words: repetition; a fundamental, if simple, part of building
memory. However, tantalisingly there is a lost work by Lull called
'The Book of the Seven Planets' which is said to contain the true
method for memory enhancement. Whilst we no longer know exactly
what this method consisted of, the emphasis on the number seven
seems important. Interestingly, psychologists now know that seven
is a fundamental number to our memory system: it's the maximum
number of 'bits' of information the average person can hold at once
in their short term memory.

The number seven was also important to the 16th Century memory
theatre of Giulio Camillo. Camillo (1480-1544) was famous and
highly regarded thinker in his time, forgotten not long after his
death due to his lack of published materials, and to the fact that
his most famous creation, a real theatre of memory, was soon lost
forever.

Whilst Camillo's theatre is now lost, and we lack direct drawings
or paintings of it, we can piece together what it was like from
various accounts. It was built out of wood, and could admit two
people. The person(s) would stand on its empty stage and look out
across its circular auditorium - where the seats would be in a
normal theatre - a little bit like the design of an ancient Greek
or Roman amphitheatre. The person would see seven columns of
'seats', each adorned with an array of images, ornaments and even
little boxes. The theatre combined the ancient Greek idea of using
places to remember concepts, with the medieval idea of a carefully
worked-out cosmology to represent the universe. It was said that by
just standing on the stage of Camillo's memory theatre and looking
out upon these seven columns of information, one would "be able to
discourse on any subject no less fluently than Cicero."

The theatre was first displayed in Venice, and became the talk of
Europe. The King of France was said to have become fascinated by
it, and it was later displayed at the French court in Paris.
Indeed, the King of France was said to be the only person in the
world to whom Camillo had divulged the secret of how the theatre
really worked. However, soon after Camillo's death it was lost,
never to be discovered.

Robert Fludd (1574-1637) was a doctor, astrologer and mystic who
also devised a memory theatre system. Fludd was also an adherent to
the medieval idea that man was a reflection of the overall order of
the universe. He devided memory enhancement into two categories:
the round and square arts:

"Memory can only be artificially improved, either by medicaments or
by the operation of the fantasy towards ideas in the round art, or
through images of corporeal things in the square art."

Fludd believed that the square art - the use of real places in
which to imagine one's memory images - was the superior method. He
believed that using imaginary places made memory enhancement more
difficult, and may even confuse the memory.

It's because of this insistence of the need to use real places that
suggests Fludd's designs for a memory theatre were at the least
intended to be constructed for real, or perhaps even were. It's
even been suggested that the design of Fludd's theatre reflected of
the design of Shakespeare's original Globe theatre in London.
Fludd's design incorporated the zodiac, as well as a number of
doors and columns to all act as memory loci. The inclusion of
images of the heavens was, similarly to Camillo's theatre, an
attempt to reflect the grand design of the universe in the Human
mind, and therefore to align the memory improvement strategy with
the fundamental laws of nature.

In a strange way, the approach to memory and way of thinking
adopted by the ancient Greeks is closer and more understandable to
us than the more recent medieval memory philosophers, with their
complex and mystical theories which are now only partially
understood.