One of the main ideas in Medieval medicine was that the body was dominated by four humors and that keeping these humors in balance was the way to maintain health. Excess of any of these humors lead to instability in illness or temperment. Each of the humors was related to a bodily fluid, an earth element, physical characteristics, and personality type. Several of the pilgrims are described with qualities that would have been recognizably connected to the humors and understood as clues about their personality. The table below and the accompanying links provide more information about the four humors:
| Humor: | Sanguine | Choleric | Phlegmatic | Melancholic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| body substance: | blood | yellow bile | phlegm | black bile |
| produced by: | liver | spleen | lungs | gall bladder |
| Earth element: | air | fire | water | earth |
| Qualities: | hot and moist | hot and dry | cold and moist | cold and dry |
| Complexion and body type: | red-cheeked, corpulent | red-haired, thin | corpulent | sallow, thin |
| Personality: | amorous, happy, generous, optimistic, irresponsible | violent, vengeful, short-tempered, ambitious | Sluggish, pallid, cowardly | Introspective, sentimental, gluttonous |
adapted from: http://www.kheper.net/topics/typology/four_humours.html
Other links:
You'll note that the ideas about the humors do not correlate to a modern medical understanding of how the body works (blood is not produced by the liver, for example), but you'll recognize the humors as terms that continue to have descriptive meaning today, like phlegmatic, melancholy, and sanguine, and of course the disease "Cholera" gets its name from the Choleric humor.
Also, two of the links above are references for Reniassance thinking: the idea of the humors remained dominant in medicine for centuries.