Medieval Humors

Composition of bodies: Elements and Humors - a miniature for On the Properties of Things [a thirteenth-century book translated into French during the fourteenth-century].

In medieval times, people had very different ideas on how the human body worked. "Humors" played a significant role. A leading authority on the subject was written by Bartholomew the Englishman, a Franciscan monk, around 1230-1240.

King Charles V, of France, ordered that Bartholomew's work be translated into French. The BNF notes the following about that translation:

"Among the many texts that King Charles V had translated into French, one of the most notable is the Liber de proprietatibus rerum [On the Properties of Things], written around 1230-1240 by a Franciscan monk, Bartholomaeus Anglicus (Bartholomew the Englishman).

"This encyclopedia in nineteen books rapidly became the accepted reference work for the natural sciences. It was translated into several vernacular languages in the fourteenth century, including an Occitan version dedicated to Gaston Phoebus, count of Foix.

"Only the French translation completed by Jean Corbechon in 1372 for Charles V proved truly successful. Unfortunately, the original manuscript executed for the king has not survived, but Corbechon's translation had a long posterity: more than 40 copies have been identified, most of them luxuriously produced, with outstanding miniatures at the beginning of each book of the English monk's treatise."

So, what exactly are "humors," as that term was understood during medieval times? A passage from A Companion to Chaucer (by Peter Brown, at page 44) provides some answers:

"Humours, which were believed to originate in the liver, were seen not only to determine body type and character; they also could have pathological manifestations...

"This text [the work by Bartholomew] explains how the liver turns foods of different qualities into the four humours and then discusses the ways in which a healthy humour can become pathological, either by mixture with other humours of by excessive heating in the body, called 'decoction.' ...

"This model for disease called for therapy directed at restoring humoural balance through diet, or by the application of medicines with compensating qualities... "

Hence, the heat waves arising from this image which was created in Le Mans, France, during the fifteenth century.