ACCORDING TO CICERO, in the second book of the De inventione:

Memory is thus inherent to prudence, an essential virtue for people in the Middle Ages. Accordingly, in the prologue to his Estoria de España, Alfonso X of Castile wrote:

And adds:

The words “remembrance” (remembrança), “oblivion” (olvido), “recall” (menbrar) are inseparable from the work of Alfonso X, the Wise King, an example of wisdom and prudence. Past events must be remembered, and for that history must be written. This concern of the Wise King had been shared, two centuries earlier, by the Toledan Saíd al Andalusí when, in his work on Las categorías de las naciones, he defined the sciences that distinguished the cultivated nations, not from the uncultivated ones, but from each other. Language, history, and religious law were the foundations of what might be called a “national identity” and perhaps, although anachronistically, a culture.

Memory is undoubtedly a feature that characterizes human life and is inseparable from civilization. The primary meaning of “memoria” is a “Facultad psíquica (or “Potencia del alma” in the 1970 edition) por medio de la cual se retiene y recuerda el pasado,” according to the Diccionario de la Lengua Española of the Real Academia Española.