With such a demand on memory, there were ingenious memory devices and aids invented to aid in the memorization of the Torah and oral law. One such aid was involving the whole body in learning – it was thought that movement, or swaying, was a mechanical aid to memorizing.

Moving into scholastic theology, there was an increased need for the art of memory as knowledge increased. The schemes of moral theology became more complex and more rules were placed upon man for salvation in the Medieval Church which placed a new emphasis on memory. Yates comments, “…the principles of artificial memory, as understood in the Middle Ages, would stimulate the intense visualization of many similitudes in the intense effort to hold in memory the scheme of salvation, and the complex network of virtues and vices and their rewards and punishments…”

While Luther himself may not have employed the artificial memory or recommended it to his students, he was certainly aware of it and used many of the time tested methods popularized in various treatises of memory through the ages.