CLASSICALAND MEDIEVAL rhetoric distinguished between “natural memory” and “artificial memory.” While the former was considered innate, the latter could be strengthened by cultivating the rules of the art of the memory which, taken from the classical world, were widely known in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. In this chapter I aim to explore in some depth medieval Catalan literature to comment on one example of “natural memory”―that of King James I and the Llibre dels fets―and two examples of “artificial memory.” In the latter case we will first examine Franciscan Francesc Eiximenis, who discusses the subject in his Ars praedicandi populo and made use of some of its elements in his prose works. Then we will look at Dominican, Vicent Ferrer who used the rules of “artificial memory” when composing his sermons. Three authors and four different types of text: a book of memories and confessions; an art of preaching and some passages from the encyclopaedic treatises by Eiximenis; and Ferrer's sermons. In other words, an example of the good use of natural memory and various samples of the development, from theory and in practice, of the rules of artificial memory.

The “Natural Memory” of James I of Aragon

King James I (1208–1276) was, in many senses, an outstanding character, undoubtedly so in the military and political spheres, but also in the literary. His literary exploits are all the more remarkable because, although it is likely that he did not know how to write, he was able to bequeath the Llibre dels fets to posterity. This was possible partly by means of reportationes, by scribes writing down the text from the king's lips, but in good measure thanks to the good natural memory of its author. We have a valuable witness to the good memory of the King of Aragon in a letter Pope Clement IV sent him on February 17, 1266. The pope, while severely reprimanding James I for his slips into the sins of the flesh, also dedicated a eulogy to him perhaps to compensate for the harshness of the criticisms: “It is clear that, above other princes of the world who have been instructed in the science of letters, the Lord has given you an excellent natural ingenuity, to which you have added much experience, ability to pronounce wise sentences, and a tenacious memory.”