ABSTRACT
The power of the mind to form concepts cannot be judged simply by how complex or abstruse the material is which it has to work upon. Certainly the range of raw data available to the mind will partly steer the course of ratiocination; but a high power of conceptualisation can engage with limited 'factual' material and bring in acutely speculative matters. The liberal arts, comprehending and transmitting knowledge, give insight into the medieval intellectual milieu. The logical arts of the trivium were necessary for arrangement, integrity and clarity. A computist deals with unmeasurable concepts using time, place and number to bestow order. Architecture was an artifice by which to coordinate and encompass the incomprehensible house of God 'not made by hands'. For all the clarity of visual patterning even in a complex cathedral there is an underlying knowledge not easily read: it pertains to the mathematical arts in just such a way as the computus did.
