A connected universe
Educated medieval people did not usually think of the seasons as a separate topic. They were one piece of a larger design in which the heavens, the elements, the human body and the stages of life were believed to fit together. The idea owed much to ancient Greek natural philosophy, passed down through Latin writers such as Isidore of Seville and Bede, and later reinforced by translations of Greek and Arabic works in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
This article looks at that way of thinking. It is a description of medieval ideas, not a claim that they were correct. The practical side of the seasons, such as work and feasting, belongs to the ordinary cycle of seasons in the farming and church year.
Two pairs of qualities
The basis of the scheme was a set of four basic qualities: hot, cold, wet and dry. These were combined in pairs, and each pair was assigned to one of the four elements.
- Fire: hot and dry
- Air: hot and wet
- Water: cold and wet
- Earth: cold and dry
Each season was then described by its dominant qualities. Summer, hot and dry, was linked to fire. Spring, mild and moist, was linked to air. Fall, cooling and dry, was linked to earth. Winter, cold and wet, was linked to water. Behind this lay the doctrine of the four elements, the basic kinds of matter in medieval thought.
Seasons and humors
Medical writers carried the pattern into the body. Medicine of the period, following ancient authorities, held that health depended on the balance of four fluids, called humors: blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. Each matched a pair of qualities, and so each matched a season.
| Season | Qualities | Element | Humor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring | Hot and wet | Air | Blood |
| Summer | Hot and dry | Fire | Yellow bile |
| Fall | Cold and dry | Earth | Black bile |
| Winter | Cold and wet | Water | Phlegm |
Authors differed in some details, and the table gives the most common version. The practical meaning was that the body was thought to change through the year. Writers of health advice, which often took the form of regimens or calendars, recommended different foods, exercise and even bloodletting in different seasons so as to keep the humors in balance. For example, cooling foods might be suggested in summer and warming ones in winter. This is the core of humoral theory, which also underlay humoral medicine. It is worth stressing that these were the best explanations of the time and that the treatments built on them were of uncertain value.
Seasons and the ages of life
The same four-part pattern was applied to the human lifespan. In many schemes, childhood was likened to spring, youth to summer, maturity to fall and old age to winter. The year thus became a picture of a life: growth, strength, decline and rest. This comparison appears in poetry and art, and it gave an emotional force to the seasons, since the coming of winter echoed the approach of old age and death. Not every scheme used four parts, and the ages of man were counted in several ways.
Microcosm and macrocosm
Behind all these matches was the idea that the human being was a small version of the universe, a microcosm, and the world a larger one, the macrocosm. If the world contained four elements and four seasons, the body was expected to contain four humors and four ages. Thinkers saw such parallels as evidence of a rational design created by God. The stars were also thought to influence earthly change, which is why seasonal advice sometimes overlapped with medieval astrology.
Not everyone accepted every parallel. Some scholars treated them as useful teaching aids and analogies rather than strict laws. Later medieval natural philosophers also began to question parts of the ancient framework, particularly as they read more texts and debated causes. The overall effect, however, was a durable habit of mind in which nature was read as a pattern of meaning.
Seasons as moral and spiritual symbols
The cycle could also be read in a spiritual way. Preachers and poets used spring as a symbol of renewal and resurrection, a link strengthened by Easter falling in spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Winter could suggest death or the trials of the soul, and fall the gathering of what one had sown, a theme taken from biblical images of harvest and judgment. These symbolic readings rarely replaced the practical view of seasons. They were added to it, which is typical of medieval thinking: an event could have a natural cause and a spiritual meaning at the same time.
What to take from it
For medieval thinkers the four seasons were a pattern that explained the weather, the body and the course of a life using the same few ideas. The framework appears in medical texts, encyclopedias, sermons and art, and recognizing it helps in reading these sources. It also shows how connected knowledge was in the period, where what a modern reader would sort into science, religion and poetry was often treated as one subject.