“Northerners are Strong, Southerners are Timid”: the Notion of Climate in Medieval Physiognomy

Abstract

This article examines the role that climate played in medieval physiognomy, and more specifically in the medieval commentaries on the pseudo-Aristotelian Physiognomonica. As the Physiognomonica is mainly a listing of external bodily features and of their corresponding character traits without explaining how precisely these connections come about, certain medieval commentators attempted to fill this knowledge gap. Our study shows how the notion of climate in medieval commentaries on the Physiognomonica is employed to support and explain physiognomic theories, in two general ways. On the one hand, the notion of climate offers a general framework to explain how the body is formed; on the other, climate is used also to rationalize certain pseudo-Aristotelian connections that would seem at a first glance not to make sense.