Hugh of St. Victor explains the Seven Mechanical Arts in his book, Didascalion: Concerning the Art of Reading. Basically, the Didascalion is the How to Read a Book of the twelfth century. In it, Hugh provides instruction for the students entering the school of the monastery of St. Victor in Paris. The first half of the work covers the twenty-one arts, how to study them, and what to read concerning them. The second half of the work deals with Scripture and other sacred writings. Among the twenty-one arts, Hugh includes the Seven Mechanical Arts: fabric making, armament, commerce, agriculture, hunting, medicine, and theatrics.
Fabric making is all kinds of weaving, braiding, sewing, twisting, etc. with materials of wool, flax, hemp, jute, hide, etc. to make clothes, sails, coverings, sacks, etc. (This is the short summary; Hugh’s list is quite extensive.)
Armament originally meant weapons, but through a lengthy etymology, Hugh shows that this science applies to the making of all tools or instruments. Thus, armament has two divisions: constructional and craftly. Constructional armament includes building houses and walls. Craftly armament includes everything that is made in the forge or foundry.
Next up is commerce. It’s just what you think it is: all buying and selling of goods both foreign and domestic.
Moving on to agriculture, we find four types of land: arable, used for sowing; plantation, used for trees and vineyards; pastoral, used for sheep and cattle; and floral, used for gardens and roses.
All hunting is divided into three parts: gaming, fowling, and fishing. Hugh also includes all preparation of food by cooking. He notes that there are two kinds of food: bread and side dishes (everything else).
The two studies of medicine are occasions and operations. Occasions are the six reasons for good or bad health: air, motion and quiet, emptiness and satiety, food and drink, sleep and wakefulness, and reactions of the soul. All operations are interior (medicine) or exterior (surgery).
Finally, Hugh comes to theatrics. Theatrics contains all types of public entertainment, including sports.
The Seven Mechanical Arts are so-called because they contain all things produced by human artifice. Hugh sees these arts as lesser than the Seven Liberal Arts because the Liberal Arts require the use of the mind, whereas the Mechanical Arts require the use of the body. For Hugh, the body is inherently inferior to the mind, and the great goal in life is to move beyond the body (he does lean towards Gnosticism). Hugh recommends the study of the Mechanical Arts, but prefers the Liberal Arts, since he believes that they renew the image of God in man.
Work Cited
Hugh of St. Victor. The Didascalion of Hugh of St. Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts. Translated by Jerome Taylor. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
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So, how important do you think they are now? Is it better to learn a little bit of everything, or focus on the "better" arts?
ReplyDeleteHugh argues that the Seven Liberal Arts are the foundations of philosophy and all knowledge. If the student studies these arts first, he will then be equipped to learn all the other arts independently.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think there is a lot of truth in this. A foundation in language (the trivium) and mathematics (the quadrivium) does prepare you for independent learning. For example, if I wanted to learn cooking (a sub-category of hunting!), I could use language to read the cookbook and mathematics to measure the ingredients.
That being said, I'm not sure I accept Hugh's claims unreservedly. My preference is naturally for the Liberal Arts, but without the Mechanical Arts, human life would be short and miserable. There has to be a way to balance the two types of arts and to recognize that we have both body and soul.
I think there may be an element to healthy mind and a healthy body going on here. One cannot survive without the mechanical arts, and one cannot live fully as a "liberated" man without the liberal arts. Both fully need the other. Also, to live always in an ivory tower is to deny the body and the soul the pleasure and necessity of physical labor.
ReplyDeleteBasically, if one accepts that mind and body are both equally created by God, he should try and develop both the liberal and mechanical arts.
Anyways, as to Audrey's question....somewhere in there I think you need to work out the theology of "gifts." Not to turn into a relativist, but maybe the most important mechanical arts for you to develop are the ones you are most gifted to do? But, as in liberal arts, the well rounded person should have a basic understanding of all of them even if he can only claim mastery in one or two areas?
I talk too much. :-)
I agree that not all of the mechanical arts should be developed equally – giftings are good. Hugh recognizes this, saying that the liberal arts should be studied first and other arts as time permits.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, not all of Hugh’s twenty-one arts are applicable to all people. For example, there are three practical (moral) arts: ethical, economic, and political. The ethical art applies to the moral behavior of an individual person. The economic art is for heads of households, and the political art is for heads of state. All people should be familiar with the ethical art, but not all people need to be familiar with the economic or political art.
In answer to your question, I think that it is beneficial to have a basic understanding of all the mechanical arts. They touch every part of our everyday life, and we all have some experience with them, even though it may not be much. Most of us have sewed on a button, done simple household repairs, bought goods, planted a garden, prepared food, know some first aid, and performed at a piano recital. It’s quite reasonable to expect a basic knowledge of each of the mechanical arts.
Something else to throw in: there's a book I've been seeing glowing reviews of everywhere (both from sources I trust and those I usually don't) called Shop Class as Soulcraft. I have not read it, but I gather from reviews that it is written by a highly intellectual political theory major, Matthew Crawford, who quit his job at a think tank in order to fix motorcycles. I suspect it would be relevant to this discussion.
ReplyDeleteZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?
ReplyDeleteV-Dawg, thanks for the recommendation. I'll look it up.
ReplyDelete