Books like The Medieval Craft of Memory — picked by fans

Everything that Mary Carruthers has written is terrific — but this is the book that first showed me how unusual, and how sophisticated, medieval approaches to the mind could be.

The arts of memory that flourished in the high Middle Ages were designed for much more than rote memorization: they helped people internalize what they perceived, then transform that material into something new.

Carruthers presents these techniques so infectiously that you’ll want to try them yourself. It’s not just the practices themselves that are riveting, though. Carruthers also shows how they shaped medieval media culture and how they contributed to the ethical development of the people who practiced them.

The arts of memory weren’t parlor tricks; they were modes of understanding and evaluating the world. Amazing!

Lines of Thought reveals the hidden magic of a seemingly simply notetaking device: the horizontal tree diagram, which became especially popular among university students and scholars starting in the thirteenth century.

Upon first glance, you might not be all that impressed by the device: it’s just a combination of vertical lists with horizontal sentence structures! But as Even-Ezra shows, these diagrams accomplished much more than a mere highlighter could.

They turned passive readers into active analysts, distilled long and complex texts into clear and concise schemas, and conveyed new ideas about the material that would have been impossible to communicate through the written text alone.

As a bonus, the book is interlaced with its own horizontal tree diagrams. And who doesn’t love a meta-format?

The medieval images that survive today might seem like simplistic or bizarre pictures now. But medieval viewers saw them differently. They treated images as tools for understanding, analyzing, and remembering complex ideas about the world.

Bolzoni works to crack that “code” through the case of late medieval Italy: she illustrates how viewers’ relationships to images changed the more they learned, how preachers communicated with their congregations in ways that listeners would visualize and internalize, and how certain images—like six-winged angels or trees of life—served as effective conduits of information but also as platforms for layered conceptual associations that got increasingly sophisticated the more that authors and audiences thought about them.

This beautiful, fascinating book is well worth seeking out from a library or used bookseller.

Early Christian monks in the eastern Mediterranean chalked up many of their mental struggles to demonic interference—and yet their approaches to the problem of attention share some striking similarities to modern psychology.

Graiver makes the case that monks’ talk of demons was not a superstitious diagnosis but a pragmatic one: it helped monks try to strike a balance between monitoring their thoughts and thinking too hard about them, deal with unwanted thoughts before they became all-consuming, and figure how to keep it together when their thoughts were all over the place.

I love that this book takes early monks and modern psychologists equally seriously. And even if you don’t start blaming your problems on demons after reading it, you will still have learned a lot about the promises and perils of attention management.

Eileen Power was a pioneer in Women’s History and this was the first book I read when I went back to university. It’s an inspiring collection of essays on medieval ideas of women, working women in town and country, education, and nunneries. If you’re planning to write a book about women in the Middle Ages, start your research here.

Power refers to many diverse contemporary texts such as The Goodman of Paris and works by Chaucer and Christine de Pisan, which enabled me (or, which will enable you) to portray authentic detail in my own book. The essay on nunneries, which I drew on for my novel, is a summary of her seminal work on medieval English nunneries. There are also forty-two well-chosen illustrations that complement the text.

Every second book I read must be a history book. As history is not only my vocation it is also my passion. As a historian I always enjoy reading and rereading Cantor’s works on the Middle Ages. This particular book is one of my favorites; it is a really engrossing history and his knowledge is presented in such a clear, informative, and interesting style that makes it very readable for the general public. This book has been extensively revised and gone through numerous editions.  

Heath Dillard uses a very special source, the Castilian municipal codes known as the fueros, to tell us about the lives of ordinary women in Castile in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. These municipal codes were given to settler communities during the Christian conquest of southern Iberia, and so reveal the value and roles of all community members: married women and girls, Muslim and Jewish women, widows, and outsiders like prostitutes, concubines, and sorceresses. This book was published just before I began my graduate study and became my constant companion once I settled on Iberian women’s history.

I first read this book a dozen times in junior high, borrowed it on interlibrary loan several times in adulthood, and eventually bought a second-hand copy. Leighton's 1960 book was rather eye-opening after a steady diet of girl power books, as it features a princess who doesn't take up a sword or rebel against society. And yet, I absolutely adored Elstrid, thrilling as she learned to navigate the complexities of her medieval world. This is by far the most historical and political book on this list, based on real people. The only drawback to this book is that the princess never scrubs a floor. But you certainly believe she knew each one of her scullery maids by name!

I often like to break away from in-depth academic historical reading and indulge in lighter yet informative work. This always leads me to Cahill’s history books. He always has a new take, such as ‘how the Irish saved civilization’ to this intriguing book, Mysteries of the Middle Ages. He skillfully portrays here how medieval thought foreshadowed the making of the Renaissance and the development of the modern scientific era. Cahill’s talent is in his easy-to-read excellent prose and intellectual richness. His books are also well-illustrated with beautiful pictures and artistic layout.  

Star-crossed lovers and a strong female heroine! This setting is the beginning of the end for the Plantagenets. Their royal court is turbulent—filled with secrets and enemies after the dramatic coup of the current king’s father, King Edward II (the events of which are featured in my book). When the beautiful and willful Joan of Kent, cousin to the royal family, is sent to live among them, she soon learns they’re the ones responsible for her father’s unjust execution and her family’s subsequent shame. Though the handsome and chivalrous Black Prince of Wales is falling at her feet, she twists his affection against him in an act of revenge, only allowing Fortune’s Wheel to turn once she decides it should be so.