to Galen moderate heat would produce blood and a sanguine complexion. Excessive heat developed yellow bile and a choleric complexion. Phlegm occured in the lungs when the quality of heat was weak and accordingly produced a phlegmatic complexion. Black bile in the spleen would abound in the autumn and promote a melancholic complexion. Galen used dissections regularly in his research. He quoted Aristotle and Plato and members of the Hippocratic school, Diocles, Philistion and Praxagoras, among authorities on humours. He points out that Praxagoras listed as many as eleven humours, but explains that this was only a refining and elaboration of the Hippocratic quartet. This kind of minutiae of the humoral theory is just a forewarning of the many Renaissance deviations into elemental obscurity.80 In ‘The Prologue’ to The Canterbury Tales a doctor appears and links medicine to astronomy: ‘The cause of every malady you’d got he knew, and whether dry, cold, moist or hot; he knew their seat, their humour and condition.’ With the discoveries of the original Galenic manuscripts in the mid-fifteenth century first-hand material became the point of departure for investigation and research in the field of humoral medicine. Galen’s genius and judgment was praised by Erasmus and mentioned by Rabelais and studied intently by Harvey as a prelude to his discovery.
Thomas Linacre’s translation of Galen into Latin, in particular De Temperamentis (1517) and De Naturalibus Facultatibus (1523), introduced the humoral theory to a larger reading public in England.81 Linacre sums up the diverse field of learning which helped to shape the intellectual climate of the English Renaissance. He was a Greek scholar, physician and theologian. By combining three vast subjects Linacre epitomizes the intellectual mood of his time, the enthusiasm to add fresh and exciting detail to the theological universe. The Greek New Testament was as important to Linacre as Galen’s Hippocratic theories.
The recognition of the proper relation between religion and medicine is illustrated in Simon Kellwaye’s medical treatise, A Defensative against the plague (1593). The author quotes from Ecclesiasticus on the title page, ‘God hath created meddesens of the earth, and he that is wise will not contemne them.’ A similar association between religion and medicine is found in John Jones’s work The Bathe of Bathes Ayde (1572) and The Arte & Science of preserving Bodie and Soule in Healthe, Wisdome, and Catholike Religion (1579). The works are dedicated to Queen Elizabeth because the ruler is seen as the divinely inspired protector of medicine through her rank in the universal chain.
Sir Thomas Elyot’s Regimen Sanitatis Salerni (1541) was made for ‘the most noble and victorious kyng of England, and of France’. Elyot was not a physician by profession, but his reading of Galen and other ancient medical writers and his early association with Linacre inspired a medical essay ‘The Castel of Helth’ (1534). The elaboration of the humoral theory takes a marked step forward in his work, but the link with the original ancestry remains unbroken. Elyot explores the elemental Hippocratic system, the qualities of the four elements, the purifying role of Fire and introduces a new word Complexion to describe the dual composition of each element:
Combination of two dyuers qualities of the foure elements in one bodye, as hotte and drye of the Fyre: hotte and moyste of the Ayre, colde and moyste of the Water, colde and dry of the Earth.82
In this way, all four elements with their assigned qualities would be present in any person, but would be defined either as Sanguine, Fleumatike, Cholerike or Melancolyke depending on the signifying qualities. Each complexion was given a list of medical as well as emotional characteristics. This suggests a new and more conscious psychological approach to the old theory. The sanguine complexion would develop from the hot and moist element Air. Among the idiosyncrasies of the sanguine person were ‘flesshynesse, plenty and redde hair, the visage white and ruddy’ and he was likely to experience ‘dreames of blouddy thynges, or thinges pleasdant’ and he would be ‘angry shortly’. The phlegmatic complexion would arise from the cold and moist element Water and a man dominated by this complexion would show signs of ‘fatnesse, slownesse, dulnesse in learning’ and ‘slownesse of courage’. The choleric complexion came from the hot and dry element Fire and this mix would create ‘leannesse of body, blacke or darke aburne curled hair’, the person would get ‘lytell sleape’ and would dream of ‘fyre, fyghtynge, or anger’ but he would be ‘hardy and fyghtynge’ and display a ‘sharpe and quycke wit’. The ‘melancolyke’ complexion had its origin in the cold and dry element Earth and combined ‘leannesse with hardnesse of skynne’ and he appears with a white or ‘duskish’ colour of skin, his dreams would be ‘fearfull’ and he would give a ‘tymerous’ impression. He would rarely be seen ‘lawghynge’ and his angry mood would be ‘longe and frettinge’.
Elyot introduces the term Humours into his work much in the sense later coined by John Jones as ‘the sonnes of Elements’, existing in the body as a kind of elemental hormones. The health of a person would depend on a fair balance of the four humours and any distortion of their distribution would upset the harmony of the body. Elyot goes on to introduce a distinction between natural and unnatural humours as when a specific humour get mixed up and is contaminated by one or more of the others. The sanguine humour escapes the distortion of the other humours and ranks as the natural captain in Elyot’s team of four. After all, Blood is ‘the treasure of life’.
‘Ages be foure’ in Elyot’s system links up with the principle of decorum of age in the Horatian theory. Horace had outlined the decorous behaviour of the four stages of man and Elyot adds the prevailing elemental qualities of the different ages. Together the two approaches promote an understanding of the psychological changes of age: ‘The man, whiche is sanguine, the more that he draweth into age wherby naturell moisture decayeth, the more is he colerike.’ Even the otherwise favourable sanguine humour does not escape unnatural distortion in old age. The four humours also related to the four seasons and Elyot explored this relationship in great detail for each humour, even with exact dates for their abundance and decline.
Anatomy and medical science associated with Renaissance cosmography and the word anatomy was used to demonstrate any physical or abstract quality. Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy is an example of this use. A similar application is apparent in Simion Grahame’s The Anatomie of Humours and John Donne’s eulogy, ‘An Anatomy of the World’. The contemporary language was ‘anatomiz’d’ and the characteristics of, for example, folly, vanity, absurdity, wit, fortune, baseness and abuse were expressed in terms of anatomy. Henry Hutton’s, Follies Anatomie, T. Garzoni’s The Hospitall of Incurable Fools, Richard Braithwaite’s Times Curtaine Drawne, or the Anatomie of Vanitie, Thomas Nashe’s The Anatomie of Absurditie, John Lyly’s The Anatomie of Wit, Robert Greene’s The Anatomie of Fortune, John Andrewes’, The Anatomie of Basenesse and Philip Stubbe’s The Anatomie of Abuses are examples of the popular application of the term.
‘De corpore politico’ like Man’s body needed a diagnosis before a cure could be suggested. John Taylor’s peace pamphlet, ‘The Causes of the Diseases and Distempers of this Kingdom’, illustrates the application of medical terms to the state. We also find contemporary medical satires like ‘A Cure for the State’ which set out to find medical prescriptions for political disturbances. The word body is used as a collective term for the art of warfare in R. Elton’s The Compleat Body of the Art Military. The Church was included as body theologie and John Taylor’s Rare Physick for the Church sick of an Ague demonstrates neatly the extension of medical analogies. There are still stirrings of the old analogies in terms like governing body, in the Prime Minister’s image of himself as the family doctor and in a recent book title, The Elements of Eloquence.83
When Shakespeare and Jonson began to write they had at hand a humoral theory that looked like this:
The elements were found in the universe as Earth, Water, Air and Fire, each element possessed two of the four primary qualities Cold, Moisture, Dryness and Heat. The four humours or complexions were the children of the elements. The melancholic humour was cold and
