Wisdom Of The Elders - Memory

 

This most excellent book bag was found hanging on a rack outside a bookshop I passed the other day. Apart from the reminder that there's no time for frivolities like twirling wreathes with a BFF when there's a book within reach, Your Correspondent thought it was time to dip into our rich medieval past and share some more nuggets of wisdom from our elders. If your memory is getting a little rusty then you are in luck today for Jacobus Publicius shares some memory enhancing tips from 1482.

For example: The tongue of a hoopoe, given to a forgetful person, will restore memory. 

Nota bene: no cooking instructions were given.

Fear not, we are not immersing ourselves bodily into the murky and uncharted waters of Latin texts, for I do profess ignorance of these matters; I merely provide this teaser page as both illustration of the lost art of beautiful typography and to show Mr. Publicius' popular and influential late-C15th treatise Ars Oratoria. Ars Epistolandi. Ars Memorativa, is no trifling matter!

His mnemonic alphabet (sampled above) could be the subject for another day, but we'll presently eschew the book's coverage of memory techniques as applied by the lofty ancients. Since he was a physician, the choice nuggets will instead come from his medical and dietary advice for improving memory, for goodness knows we could all do with some help in that department.

Pick and choose from the following regime, as you see fit, Dear Reader, of tips to keep your brain's psychical pneuma serene, lucid and clear and thus stave off a languid and dull memory*:

• Moderate sleep at night.
• Avoid midday snoozing. If you can't help it then sleep in bare feet as the thick soles of shoes will reflect harmful vapours back into the brain and eyes of one who slumbers deeply.
• Keep your head moderately covered with cloths, according to the season, as both excessive heat and cold dulls the mind with stupidity.
• Sleeping on one's back, thus warming the kidneys beyond what is reasonable, is a most harmful enemy of the mind. Men should sleep then on their side or tummy. Sleeping on one's back is fine, however, for women and for nocturnal delusions and pollutions**.
• Upon rising, purge your body's channels with expectoration and motion. Then rub your head with an ivory comb and a rough, coarse rag.
• After ablutions, swallow six raisins and as many juniper berries. This will do for breakfast.
• A bit of exercise, then on to lunch. You don't want your wine too vehement, lest it inflames the blood, so light wine only or diluted with water.
• Boiled meat then roast meat, in that order.
• To avoid your stomach emitting the vapours from the digesting meat, clouding the mind and intellect and eliciting sleep, you need to close your stomach's opening. A list of fruits and nuts qualified in this respect can be furnished upon request.
• Avoid horseradish, garlic, onion and leek as they are the enemy of memory.
• Avoid noxious odours, they are harmful to the brain.
• Keep your head and feet very clean with a decoction of water boiled with honey, bay leaves, and stems of fennel and chamomile.
• The dulling of the mind can be alleviated by the sneezing caused by mustard, pepper and castoreum, and by the chewing of oregano, stavesacre and caper root.
• Exercising some more at dusk and at night in the manner of the Pythagoreans is a great help to the memory and to the human mind and intellect. It's not specified if this is physical exercise or mathematical gaieties, so try either or both!

I do hope this unsolicited 500-year-old advice is found valuable, Dear Reader!

* I am quoting liberally here from the Henry Bayerle translation in The Medieval Craft of Memory: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, 2002 edited by Mary Carruthers and Jan P. Ziolkowski.

** There are also provided the typical Pythagorean cautions against, ahem, immoderate coitus, but we don't speak of such stuffs around here.

Image credits: 1: Flying With Hands; 2: Royal Collection Trust; 3, 4: Internet Archive