In the vineyard of the text : a commentary to Hugh's Didascalicon / Ivan Illich

Includes bibliographical references (pages 125-154)

1. Reading toward Wisdom: -- Incipit.-- Auctoritas.-- Studium.-- Disciplina.-- Sapientia.-- Lumen.-- The Page as Mirror.-- The New Self.-- Amicitia -- 2. Order, Memory, and History : -- Never Look Down on Anything.-- Ordo.-- Artes.-- The Treasure Chest in the Reader's Heart.-- The History of Memory.-- The Lawyer's Skill at the Service of Prayer.-- Memory Training as Prelude to Wisdom.-- Historia as Foundation.-- All Creation Is Pregnant -- 3. Monastic Reading : -- Meditation.-- Communities of Mumblers.-- The Page as a Vineyard and Garden.-- Lectio as a Way of Life.-- Otia Monastica.-- The Demise of the Lectio Divina -- 4. Lectio in Latin : -- Latin Monasticism.-- Gregorian Chant.-- The Latin Monopoly Over Letters -- 5. Scholastic Reading : -- Hugh Adds a Preface.-- The Duty to Read.-- In Spite of Slender Income.-- The Canon Regular Edifies by His Lectio.-- The Flipping of the Page.-- The New Cleric Monopolizes Letters.-- Silent Reading.-- The Scholastic Dictatio -- 6. From Recorded Speech to the Record of Thought : -- The Alphabet as a Technology.-- From the Trace of Utterance to the Mirror of Concept.-- From the Comment on a Story to the Story About a Subjec.-- Ordinatio: Visible Patterns.-- Statim Inveniri: Instant Access.-- Alphabetic Indexing.-- Author Versus Compiler, Commentator, and Scribe.-- Layout.-- Illuminatio Versus Illustratio.-- The Portable Book -- 7. From Book to Text : -- Toward a History of the Text as Object.-- The Abstraction of the Text.-- Lingua and Textus.-- "All Things Are Pregnant."

Examining the Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor, Illich celebrates the culture of the book from the twelfth century to the present. Hugh's work, at once an encyclopedia and guide to the art of reading, reveals a twelfth-century revolution as sweeping as that brought about by the invention of the printing press and equal in magnitude only to the changes of the computer age--the transition from reading as a vocal activity done in the monastery to reading as a predominantly silent activity performed by and for individuals