ABSTRACT
In terms of the five-fold ‘parts’ of rhetoric formulated memorably in antiquity for teaching the subject, The Book of Memory centered on memoria; this one centers on inventio. All scholars who study the subject of rhetorical memory remain much indebted to Frances Yates. Yates herself believed that the goal of the art of memory was solely to repeat previously stored material: she characterized the medieval versions of the ancient art as ‘static’, without movement, imprisoning thought. Monastic memoria, like the Roman art, is a locational memory; it also cultivates the making of mental images for the mind to work with as a fundamental procedure of human thinking. The model of memory as inherently locational, and having a particular cognitive role to play, is quite distinct from another philosophical model, equally influential in the West and equally ancient. Albertus Magnus retained a conviction that a locational model of memory was essential for purposes of cognition.
