Interior Integrities for Exterior Works (Hugh #6)

Table is coming along nicely under Mr. J’s keen eye. Also above is some soft linen fabric I use to make the corn-filled pad on the lap desks in the shop. What a beautiful blue! You can put the bag in the microwave or low oven, then attach a nice warm pad for your winter reading or work while in a chair.

Linen fabric is made from the plant called flax in english. Lin-seed, and ‘Linum’ in latin. Farther below is a short video about making linen from flax. (I recorded a nice one at home, but you’l have to wait until I get more organized to share that.) Interesting that ‘wool’ in latin sounds so similarly to linen : ‘Lana.’ A name refering not just to the co-star of the 1952 film ‘Bad and the Beautiful’, but also a component word of ‘lanificium’, : wool-craft, or fabric-making. Which brings me back to Hugh.

For those of you new to this blog, I’ve been writing a bit as I reading along in a book called the Didascalicon by a 12th century monk and mystic named Hugh of St Victor. It is a course of reading, an account of human knowledge, a spiritual guide and a description of various human arts and activities all in one. One notable feature I’ve begun to explore in these posts is how Hugh gives such significant space and attention to the discussion of what he calls the ‘mechanical arts.’ I love this for the picture of medieval craft and learning it provides, and for his past viewpoint on how these arts relate to Christian contemplative spirituality. I also just like to see how earthly matter changes into the various things we make to use and enjoy. Pondering these materials and crafts seems to hold wisdom, and a glimpse of whole things for those who look patiently. Overall, Hugh sees the range of human arts, including, theology, sciences, and crafts, as belonging to the healing work of God, caring for humankind and creation, and restoring us to what we were created to be.

Which brings us to the first three of the seven mechanical arts in Hugh’s scheme.

Fabric-making (Lanificium!),

Armament (Armatura),

and

Commerce (Navigatio).

His scheme might not make a ton of sense to us today. But you could try to think with this stranger from another world if you conceive of the seven mechanical arts as all being related to an integrated set of basic human needs, as Hugh viewed them. Then, his thinking might not seem quite as strange. This concept of looking at the human being as comprising basic needs, which can be both weaknesses and capacities, from which spring many of our arts, crafts and sciences, is not unlike the thought of Abraham Maslow or Manfred Max-Neef. Both of those men thought of humans as having a set of basic needs that required adequate satisfaction for human flourishing. Max-Neef, unlike Maslow, does not create a hierarchy of needs based on the material as fundamental. Instead he views relational, emotional, social and biological needs as vitally interrelated in the process of human flourishing.

Anyway, an underlying integrity of needs and capacities inside determines what we need and what we do. We can pursue these in an imbalanced or excessive way, or an appropriate and balanced way. For Hugh, four of these arts relate to interior provision of various kinds of nourishment, and three relate to the provision of exterior cover.

Shoulder Clasp, Sutton Hoo Treasure, ca. 8th century

By Rob Roy User:Robroyaus on en:wikipedia.org - https://www.flickr.com/people/robroy/ or http://www.roblog.com, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1609752

’Armament’ includes those arts and crafts that futher cover the body for protection. Within this need for external protective cover Hugh includes armor, weaponry, walls, fortifications, as well as the arts and crafts by which such earthly materials as metal, wood and clay are transformed into such protective cover by hammering, pouring, cutting, joining, throwing and otherwise shaping. And having looked carefully at these techniques, who’s to stop you from meditating on these as symbols?

Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Ephesians 6:11

For you, O God, have tested us;
you have tried us as silver is tried. Psalm 66:10

‘Commerce’ is again a provision of external cover. I am wondering about this. Taylor translates ‘Navigatio’ as ‘commerce,’ leaving no footnote. So for now, I’d just invite you to imagine commerce beyond merchandising, and into the human activities of navigation, orienteering, exploration, trade negotiation, gift exchanges, and diplomacy.

St. Brendan the Navigator and Co. discover an island with sheep at Easter.

That being said, Hugh discusses commerce with another comment we would appreciate today.

“This art [commerce] is beyond all doubt a peculiar sort of rhetoric-strictly of its own kind-for eloquence is in the highest degree necessary to it.”

Which is to say salesmanship involves skillful and persuasive talk (however you might otherwise describe that kind of talk!) There is much more to ponder in what Hugh has assembled here about what he sees. Hugh comments on how commerce is an art that explores and and holds land, engages in trade and negotiation, and contributes to the exterior conditions of peaceful relations among private economic interests and political entities.

No doubt marketing, trade and negotiation can take vicious forms. Hugh sees how this art practiced virtuously meets human needs, such as to encounter one another, engage in exchange, and to cultivate the external conditions of peaceful existence.  

Here’s the flax fiber video.

…and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:24

I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. Matthew 25:36