Gripla - 20.12.2018, Page 44

GRIPLA44
be found in Af natturu mannzins ok bloði; the elements are linked with the
creation, and their nature associated with the humours in men (books i
and iv).41 It can be noted in this context that Simek has identified an old
Norse translation from Philosophia mundi, book iii, in GKS 1812 I 4to,
folios 11v–12r (c. 1300–1400).42
the french cleric Hugo de folieto (c. 1100–74) goes even further than
William and lays out the learned doctrine of the humours in the context
of Christian salvation in De medicina animae. as an example, he writes
that black bile makes men sad out of longing for God, but they can purify
themselves by crying the black bile out: “Purgationem [de cholera nigra]
habet per oculos. ab his enim vitiis, pro quibus tristes efficimur, si per
confessionem ejecta fuerint, per lacrymas purgamur.”43 [the purification
(of black bile) is through the eyes, for if we liberate ourselves by confess-
ing the sins that make us sorrowful, we are purified through the tears.]
thus, the theory of the four humours serves as a vehicle for a Christian
message. Though no fragments of De medicina animae have been found
in the old norse manuscript corpus, extant norwegian fragments from
1200–1300 show that some writings of Hugo de folieto were copied in
medieval Scandinavia;44 as for medieval Icelandic clergymen, De claustro
41 Philosophia Mundi is printed under the name of Honorius augustodunensis in De philos-
ophia mundi libri quatuor, ed. by Jean-Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina 172 (Paris: Migne,
1854), cols. 39–102, see on the creation of man in i. 23, the elements in i. 21 and iv. 20. In
Paradise man had the ideal temperament but lost it after being expelled, and the qualities
(hot, cold, dry and moist) could increase or decrease, resulting in the choleric, phlegmatic
and melancholic state: “Homo naturaliter calidus et humidus, et inter quatuor qualitates
temperatus, sed quia corrumpitur natura, contingit illas in aliqou intendi et remitti,”
Philosophia mundi, iv. 20 (col. 93). [Man is by nature warm and moist, and tempered by
the four qualities. But because his nature is corrupted, it happens that in some people,
some qualities increase or diminish.] Parallel ideas are also found in later writings of
William of Conches, based on his earlier Philosophia; see ii. 1–7 in William of Conches,
Dragmaticon.
42 Simek, Altnordische Kosmographie, 67–68. as for other works by William of Conches be-
ing known in medieval Iceland, a partial translation of Moralis philosophia de honesto et utili
has been identified in Hauksbók; see “Guillelmus de Conchis” in Gottskálk Jensson (ed.),
Islandia Latina. that text does not touch upon the ideas brought forward above.
43 Hugo de Folieto, De medicina animae, ed. by Jean-Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina 176
(Paris: Migne, 1854), col. 1191. See further on the merger of theology and physiology in
the writings of Hugo de folieto in Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy,
107–10.
44 See Marianne Wifstrand Schiebe and Espen Karlsen, “a Christian approach to Vergil's
Eclogues. A Fragment of Hugo de Folieto, De pastoribus et ovibus in oslo,” Latin Manuscripts