The Seven Mechanical Arts

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.