Gripla - 20.12.2018, Side 57

57
altogether.90 these describe the dominance of each humour according to
the hours of the day, the pulse accompanying each humour, and the patho-
logical features of humoral imbalance along with the relevant therapy.91
furthermore, the order of the items is not the same: in Af natturu mannz-
ins ok bloði, the characterology has been moved in front of the rest, and
items 3 and 4 have been transposed, as well as items 8 and 9.
although the old norse text follows the Latin on all major points,
there are three noteworthy divergences. two minor ones are as follows:
in item 4, regarding red bile, the Old Norse text adds kátr [cheerful] and
vakr [alert] to the description and in item 7, Vindician’s Letter places the
red bile “at the same place” as the liver, while the old norse text specifies
that it is in the gall. this does not, however, create a contradiction in the
overall meaning. the biggest divergence occurs in item 10, regarding the
humours according to the ages of men. Both texts state that phlegm, with
blood, dominates up to fourteen years of age, and red bile up to twenty-
five. Next, the Letter tells, blood and black bile dominate up to forty-two
(as in the Hippocratic Nature of Man).92 thereafter, just as in children,
Vindician notes, phlegm dominates. the old norse text claims, however,
that blood and black bile dominate up to seventy years of age, not forty-
two as in the Letter. When it comes to the correlation of certain humours
to the different ages of man, the body of texts that has been cited here
for comparison does not specify any years – only periods of life: child-
hood, adolescence, maturity and old age.93 However, in Isidore of Seville’s
HUMORAL THEORY IN THE MEDIEVAL NORTH
90 this tendency in Hauksbók has often been noted, for a brief overview see Jón Helgason,
“Introduction,” xviii; Sveinbjörn rafnsson, “Sagnastef,” 82. as for aM 544 4to, see, e.g.,
on the treatment of Disciplina clericalis, the source of the exempla preceding Af natturu
mannzins ok bloði in the same gathering, in Sveinbjörn rafnsson, “Sagnastef,” 85; on the
text in the first two gatherings of aM 544 4to, see Wellendorf, “universalist aspirations in
Hauksbók,” 55–60. for possible explanations of this overall inclination, see Jón Helgason,
“Introduction,” xviii; Sverrir Jakobsson, “Hauksbók and the Construction of an Icelandic
World View,” 29.
91 The Letter explains how the therapy follows the principle of opposites: to regulate, for
instance, the predominance of black bile, which is cold, dry and sour, a remedy with the
opposite qualities should be applied, that is, hot, moist and sweet. Epistula Vindiciani,
490–91.
92 Nature of Man, 15 (40–41).
93 for instance, Bede, De natura rerum, 35; Pseudo-Bede, De mundi constitutione, page 18, and
Hugo de Folieto, De medicina animae, cols. 1185–87, as well as the different diagrams show-
ing the interrelation of the elements, humours and ages, do not include specific years.