Medieval Healthy Living

Humor Theory and its Applications

 

Ms. Agnes deLanvallei

Humor theory was developed in Roman or pre-Roman times. All things were determined to be composed of the four elements, water, fire, earth, and air. After the fall of Rome the theory was known vaguely to the men of the Catholic Church who preserved knowledge, but was not important them. The theory was preserved and studied among the Arabs.Writings in Arabic were translated into Latin in Spain and made their way to Italy and France from there. As European conditions started to favor the accumulation and development of knowledge, humor theory was part of it. By the end of the MiddleAges, it had been developed into a complex and elaborate set of beliefs, capable of explaining almost everything.¹

The problem was that humor/four element theory was not correct. All things turn out to be made of subatomic particles combined into atoms, forming over 100 elements. They aren't made of water, fire, earth, and air. As modern physics and chemistry advanced, more and more of the tenets underlying the four elements and the humor theory of medicine that followed from them were shown to be false. The whole thing was eventually abandoned.

Throughout the Middle Ages, however, the four elements and humors underlaid all scientific explanations

Thus, to live a healthy life almost anywhere in Medieval Europe your physician would urge you to balance your humors. Here I explain about that and try to provide the tools to do so.

Four elements: combine in ALL things.

Element	Qualities	Season	Direction	Age	Humor	Temperament
AIR	Moist & hot	Spring	east	infancy	blood	sanguine
FIRE	Dry & hot	Summer	south	youth	yellow bile	choleric (bilious)
EARTH	Dry & cold	Fall	west	adulthood	black bile	melancholic
WATER	Moist & cold	Winter	north	old age	phlegm	phlegmatic

The seasons and the cardinal directions each are associated with a particular element.

A person, aging, goes from being very moist and hot in infancy, through being hot but dry as a youth, dry and cold in adulthood and moist and cold in old age.

 

Health is generally a balance of humors.¹ The humors are based on the real fluids (blood, bile, phlegm) but they add medical meaning and so an "excess of phlegm" as described by a Medieval physician might not actually require that real phlegm (mucus) be present. Black bile is not a real fluid, but rather one created to balance the system. Everyone should have all four humors, in balanced amounts, to be healthy. Medical treatment favors helping restore balance by adding missing humors or reducing excesses (hence, for example, bleeding as a treatment).

Temperament. Like everything else, people's physiology and psychology are determined by the elements. A trained physician can recognize the different types, which tells them which characteristics are in excess and need treatment.

This figure encapsulates the general view. Note that the year and one's life progress clockwise from air.

AIR

WATER

FIRE

moist (wet)

hot

Medical Advice Based on Humor Theory: People were comprised of the four humors: blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. The excess or shortage of one of the humors represented an excess or shortage of one or two of the four elements.

Health is balance: not too much or too little of any one humor. Often Doctrine of Opposites was the prescribed method, correcting an imbalance with its opposite.

 

Simple Advice that follows from this is:

In summer (hot & dry): take cool wet things

If old (cold & moist): seek hot dry things

In the west (cold & dry):seek hot wet things

If you are sanguine of temperament (hot & moist), avoid hot moist things, seek cool, dry ones.

Specific diseases are imbalances of humors and are treated with the opposites.

The Zodiac/horoscope makes this system even more complex, using twelve, not four points. Expanding along with humor theory, the Zodiac provides more detail, its twelve signs fitting neatly into the scheme drawn above. In the 16^th and 17^th centuries, well-defined horoscopes allowed the field of medical astrology to develop, in which the person's horoscope was drawn to find which illnesses the time and place of their birth made them prone to.

TYPES OF PEOPLE UNDER HUMOR THEORY

The theory was applied to people, using their physiology to categorize them (see chart above).

Lists of the characteristics are compiled: temperament list.

I apply this to myself: Example

A compilation of the humor characteristics ascribed to a variety of foods and other common things are given: by element; alphabetically

WHAT TO DO WITH THIS IN THE SCA?

Work out your Temperament and the foods your learned physician says you should and should not eat.

Cook feasts that are "healthy" according to Humor Theory.

Amuse yourself and your friends by describing foods or feasts in terms of Humor Theory.

Additional suggestions

Notes

¹ N. G. Siraisi. 1990. Medieval and early Renaissance medicine.University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Pp. 1-7, 97-106; C. Rawcliffe. 1995. Medicine and Society in later Medieval England. Sandpiper Books, London, pp. 29-35.; J. M. Riddle. Dioscorides on pharmacy and medicine. University of Texas Press, Austin TX pp. 168-176.

 

Sources

L. C. Arano.1976. The Medieval health handbook. Tacuinum sanitatis.Georges Braziller Publisher, NY ISBN 0807608084 A compilation of the editions of the Tacuinum sanitatis, from France and Italy in the 1380s, and one in the 1400s. More breadth, less detail than The four seasons of the house of Cerruti

O. L. Bettmann 1956. A pictoral history of medicine. Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, Springfield, IL.

Facts on File Publications. 1983. The four seasons of the House of Cerruti.Facts on File Publishers, NY. ISBN 0816001383. A version of the Tacuinum sanitatis a "Medieval health handbook", (more literally, "health tables"). Originally in Arabic written by Ibn Botlan about 1050 AD based on classical sources modified by Arab medical knowledge. A translation reached Europe before 1266. The edition replicated as The four seasons of the House of Cerrutiwas an illustrated Latin edition probably from northern Italy about 1400.

D. P. O'Hanlon, translator. 1981. Macer's Virtue of herbs. Hemkunt Press, Delhi. Translation into modern English of Middle English version of rhymed Latin verses on herbs, attributed to Macer, written in Germany about 1200 AD.

C. Rawcliffe. 1995. Medicine and Society in later Medieval England. Sandpiper Books, London. ISBN 184004005x

J. M. Riddle. 1985. Dioscorides on pharmacy and medicine. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.ISBN 0292715447

N. G. Siraisi. 1990. Medieval and early Renaissance medicine. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0226761304

P. Throop translator. 1998. Hildegard von Bingen's Physica Healing Arts Press, Rochester, VT ISBN 0892816619. Benedictine Abbess Hildegard wrote a compendium of the uses of plants and animals in healing, about 1150, Rhineland, Germany

G. Tobyn. 1997. Culpeper's Medicine. A practice of western holistic medicine Element Publishers, Shaftsbury, Dorset. ISBN 1852309461.Quotes Culpeper's more obscure writings extensively.