Casey Rousseau wrote: > > mia wrote: > > > > IIRC, Thomas Aquinas was considered unusual because he didn't move his > > lips when he read. > > > > Well that explains where I probably encountered it. I was just reading > about Aquinas last week. The classic scene in question is not with Aquinas but with Ambrose; it occurs in Augustine's _Confessions_, and is late classical in timeframe rather than mediaeval. It marks a major shift in how people dealt with books -- it's not just that they moved their lips, they read _aloud_. Written language moved from being a recorded form of speech to a semi-autonomous thing in itself. By Aquinas' day reading internally was old news. -- James Burbidge jamesandmary.burbidge at sympatico.ca