Victor I. Scherb Univ. of Texas at Tyler

1/17/01

"Thynke and remember": Memory and Allegory in Mankind

As many preachers and teachers know, listeners can have notoriously short memories. An audience’s brief retention span may even have been a cause for concern for the authors of fifteenth-century didactic dramas, as Mankind attests. Frequently studied for its dramatization of late medieval life, for its complex and sophisticated wordplay, and for the manner in which it promotes interaction between the acting troupe and the audience, this East Anglian play also explores late medieval attitudes towards drama and memory. The play both acts as a mnemonic aid and calls into question the efficacy of such aids, suggesting that precepts and mnemonic devices are no substitute for experience, a deficiency that the play attempts to rectify by exploiting the fluid potential of the allegory to approach actual experience.

Late medieval theologians agreed that truth needed to be embodied in a striking way so that it could be kept in mind, contemplated, and applied to lived experience. Hugh of St. Victor, for example, observed that "the utility of all doctrine consists in memory alone, for whatever is heard is of no use if it is not understood, and it is of no use to understand something if you are unable or unwilling to remember it." For Hugh, learning was a complicated process involving aptitude, interpretation, meditation, and memory. Mere perception was inadequate; signs also had to be interpreted so that they could be understood and, ideally, thought about so that they could be properly employed by the student. Striking, memorable images were furthermore necessary because, in the words of fifteenth-century Oxford theologian Reginald Pecock,

Human frailty necessitated the use of "rememoratijf or mynding signes and tokenes," which in their turn promote obedience, service, and devotion. Although he does not specifically mention drama, Pecock places no restrictions on the medium of these "mynding signes." Striking images and scenes, performed by human actors, could well become one of the "thingis and meenis" that move men’s hearts "forto loue God and drede God."

While little dramatic theory from the Middle Ages remains, what does suggests that religious drama made a powerful impression on the memories of the contemporary audience. According to the defenders of stage plays described in the fifteenth-century Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge, plays surpass painting not only because they explain themselves more effectively, but also for their mnemonic efficacy. Plays "ben holden in mennus minde and oftere reherisd by the pleyinge of hem than by the peintinge, for this is a deed bok, the tother a quick." Drama is a living—or "quick"—book and therefore makes deeper and more lasting impressions on a spectator’s mind, impressions that are more likely to be recalled and meditated upon, affecting and perhaps even permanently altering an individual’s character.

Mankind includes a wide number of techniques that we might loosely include under the heading of mnemonics: isolated Biblical verses, precepts, proverbs, exempla, and symbolic "minding signs." To some extent, all of these constitute part of what we might call "public memory"; that is, the body of more or less official knowledge passed down from the past to the present in oral and written form, a body of knowledge that comes to life in the minds and memories of individuals in the present as they apply it to their particular circumstances. Mercy, probably dressed as a cleric of some kind, acts as the repository of just this sort of public memory in his opening exhortation to the audience, most noticeably when he adapts Matthew (3:12). Mercy admonishes the spectators that "The corn xall be sauyde, þe chaffe xall be brente. / I besech yow hertyly, have þis premedytacyon" (43-44). In effect, Mercy asks the spectators to ponder the verse’s significance.

A similar emphasis on the importance of public memory colors the introduction of the play’s protagonist. Unlike The Castle of Perseverance, in which the mankind-figure enters the action as a newly born human being, here Mankind enters as an apparently mature man with a recognizable character that is largely a product of public memory. He knows his nature, how he is "of a body and of a soull, of condycyon contrarye" (195). As a consequence, he realizes, he is "onstedfast in lywynge" (214), an unsteadiness made worse, I suggest, by the weakness of human memory. Mankind has had at least some acquaintance with learning, for he has "herde tell of ryght worschypfull clerkys / 3e [Mercy] be aproxymatt to God and nere of hys consell" (222-23). Nevertheless, he is aware of the dangers of his condition in the world (199-205) and is eager for more instruction.

In many ways the protagonist’s condition parallels that of the audience at the play’s opening as they listen to Mercy’s opening exhortation, and Mercy offers Mankind similar advice, couched in memorable form as general admonitions (e.g. 220), precepts (e.g. 228), and proverbs such as "Mesure is tresure" (237). Mercy also offers Mankind the exemplary story of Job (286-93). Exempla were, of course, a common preaching aid, popular in part because of their mnemonic efficacy. Finally, Mercy offers the Word itself in Latin Biblical verses drawn from Job (292-93). Such advice will have added urgency if Mankind will but "Remember . . . þe tyme of contynuance / . . . ys but a chery tyme (233-34). According to Mercy, the brevity of life should act as a mnemonic aid, providing a basis for the protagonist’s meditations, allowing him to "Thynke on my doctryne" and "sett my words in hart" (259-60).

Biblical paraphrases like those that Mercy employs in the instruction of both the audience and Mankind would have formed the basis of any well-trained memory in the later Middle Ages. As part of the public memory of Christendom, Latin tags formed a basic part of the school curriculum. Mankind himself recognizes the importance of memorizing Scriptural verses when he responds to Mercy’s advice by creating his own mnemonic aid that also adapts Scripture (Job 34:15). As he says, he will

The effect is rather like a small boy’s first day at school, with his name, "homo," and his address, "in cinerem," pinned to his jacket. If man is lost return to dust. The verse he chooses for himself specifically invokes the faculty of memory ("Memento") and its effect recalls the final word of Mercy’s opening speech. Like Mercy’s paraphrase of Matthew, Mankind’s Latin verse demands to be employed actively in "premedytacyon"; that is, to be singled out for attention, meditated upon, and ultimately made one’s own by being applied to lived experience. Similarly, as in the passage above, the transitory nature of human existence acts as a stimulus to memory. The word Mankind uses to describe the writing of this "bagge" is also significant—he "tytyll[s]" on the paper; literally he "titles" it. Primarily, this means that he records his Latin verse on a strip of paper, but in doing so he creates a "title;" that is, he creates "an inscription placed on or over an object, giving its name or describing it." Titles could also be used in books as mnemonic devices, as Mary Carruthers has observed, designed to help readers organize and recall complex written works in their memories. This piece of paper is not only Mankind’s self-description—it is his mnemonic for himself.

Mankind has some limited success in remembering his "tytyll." The vices—Mischief, New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought—offer him a life at one remove from the storehouse of public memory proffered by Mercy. Rather than the sententiae, exempla, and Biblical verses Mercy employs, they proffer dance, scatological song, and parody. If Mercy to some extent has the status of an authority, it is because he remembers and transmits past wisdom; the vicious characters instead associate themselves with a present "wisdom" that establishes its identity not so much by ignoring the past as by perverting it through mockery and parody. Where Mankind’s "tytyll" explicitly exists as "The gloryouse remembrance of my nobyll condycyon" (318), the vices attempt "to perverte my condycyons and brynge me to nought" (386), transforming Mankind’s Scriptural paraphrase into a forgotten and therefore meaningless sign.

Mankind drives the first group away, but Titivillus succeeds where they had failed. He does so in essence by giving man new "titles"; as he states, "I xal go to hys ere and tytyll therin" (557). Although the primary meaning here is doubtless "to whisper," it unavoidably recalls the protagonist’s earlier usage of the word. Where Mankind’s previous "tytyll" was a reminder of his mortality paraphrased from Job, Titivillus supplies him with new ones suggestive of spiritual and fleshly pride, even implying that the Church could be superfluous to an individual’s salvation. According to Titivillus,

A schorte preyere thyrlyth hewyn; of þi preyere blyn.

þou art holyer þen ever was ony of þi kyn.

Aryse and avent þe! nature compellys. (558-60)

Titivillus here picks up the earlier scatological song by New Guise, Nowadays, Nought, and the audience that had played upon the phonetic similarity of "holy" and "hole-lick" (333-43). Spurious feelings of spiritual superabundance seemingly lead to physical excretion. As Carolynn Van Dyke has suggested, the vicious characters "claim that mankind is essentially a creature of earth, that the signs that truly define him are those that he leaves on his breeches." I would add that these signs are fundamentally unreadable except as markers of carnality, a characteristic we also find in an iconographic genre peculiar to East Anglia known as "jangling" wall paintings. These depict two women seated in the midst of a "long bench," their "heads close together," with a large devil behind them, encircling them with his arms. In some instances there are also "scrolls filled with meaningless letters, often repeated throughout the length of each scroll." The paintings specifically warn against idle chatter (illustrated by the gibberish on the scrolls), while the devil’s embracing action economically portrays the gossips as part of a demonic fellowship. In essence, Titivillus turns Mankind’s "tytyll" to a similar type of gibberish, to idle language and dirty marks on his breeches, signs that mark him both as fleshly and as part of Titivillus’ fellowship.

Titivillus’ successful assault on Mankind’s virtue can be seen as a process of forgetting or loss of the past. Mankind loses or renounces his seeds, his spade, and his rosary, the latter itself a mnemonic device. In essence, Titivillus’ manipulation of the physical hardships of existence makes Mankind forget his "nobyl condycion" as exemplified by his participation in both physical and spiritual labor. Titvillus’ theft of the seeds symbolizes a loss of the past that is also the loss of a future. Without seeds retained from the past there is no productive labor in the present and hence, no future. Although Mankind had defeated the first largely verbal assault of New Guise, Nowadays, and Nought by the physical action of attacking them with his spade, physical hardship itself and his fleshly needs empty out the cells of his memory.

Having completed his successful manipulation of the material circumstances of Mankind, Titivillus boasts that he has brought him to "myscheff and to schame" (606) and it is no accident that Myscheff and his cohorts immediately appear. Having brought Mankind to mischief, shame naturally follows, a process ultimately resulting in Mankind being brought to "Nought"—a condition of nothingness lacking both past and future. For Mankind, Mercy is no more, it is the year of no king, and Nought’s writing, divorced from any memory of signification, is simply "blottybus in blottis,/ Blottorum blottibus istis" (680-81). The vices final and in many ways most memorable emblem is another "o," the noose itself, a naught leading to nothingness.

The protagonist’s imminent suicide is, of course, forestalled by Mercy’s return, Mankind’s brush with death acting as a stimulus to his memory, allowing him to recall his own nature, how he has been "bestyally dysposyde" (813), and thus his need for Mercy. Mercy here again fulfills a clerical function by acting as a repository of public memory—in this case Christian doctrine—restating points that Mankind has ostensibly forgotten. He is also what the protagonist, like the humankind he represents, requires—a mercy that is finally unmerited but is no less effective for all that.

While Mercy encourages Mankind to be vigilant, he also suggests that Mankind’s fall may in part have been a product of an inherent weakness in the human memory, a weakness that implies man’s life in sin may have at least one positive consequence. Mercy uses a Latin proverb, "Jacula prestita minus ledunt" (882; "Known darts sting less"), to suggest that the temptations of sin may be less piercing in the future now that Mankind has become personally acquainted with them. Despite all his apparent care and attention to Mercy’s words and to mnemonic preparation, Mankind had in an important sense been "obliuyows" (879) to the truth of Mercy’s doctrine in that he had had no actual experience of sin. If Mankind could not finally remember Mercy’s precepts when faced by the hardships of physical existence, perhaps the deep impressions made on his memory by his own experience of viciousness will make sin less attractive and allow him to be more vigilant in the future.

Near the play’s conclusion, Mercy speaks directly to the audience, telling them to "Serge ₃our condicyons wyth dew examinacion. / Thynke and remembyr

. . ."(908-9). In order to be effective, the play suggests, memory must be supported by "premeditation"—exactly what Mercy had urged the audience to do at the play’s beginning. Beyond simply passively accepting doctrine presented to an individual by custodians of the public memory like clerics, that doctrine must be made an individual’s own by forethought and by then being applied to lived experience. And even this may not be enough. The play recognizes the inevitability of an individual’s fall into sin, but attempts to turn that apparent weakness into a strength, stressing the availability of mercy, but also insisting that the lessons of experience make deeper and more lasting impressions upon the memory.

The play itself offers a kind of vicarious experience that will penetrate the memories of the audience more deeply than any proverb, exemplum, or scriptural quotation precisely because it approaches lived experience. The play attempts to bridge this gap in its allegorical form—Mankind is, after all, the audience’s representative, and the play consistently erodes barriers between the performers and the audience through such techniques as direct address, physical interaction, audience participation, and local allusion. The play’s simple, uncluttered staging also insists on the interchangeability of the play’s characters and the audience members. While never losing sight of the truths it endeavors to teach, the play alludes to contemporary issues, names local places, and discusses local citizens. Employing an unusually fluid type of personification allegory, the drama thus capitalizes on both the stereotypical and individuating possibilities of its genre.

Mankind exploits the potential of allegory to offer its audience memory images that are more efficacious because they more closely approach lived experience. At Mankind’s conclusion, the play’s original audience would have indeed experienced a "quick" book, one that they may well have continued to have in mind long after the play’s conclusion, one that would indeed allow them to think, remember, and—perhaps—learn.