A journey into the Elizabethan mind

The Elizabethans were desperate to untangle the mystery of their "inward selves". Helen Hackett reveals how they used ancient teachings, Christian doctrine and new scientific discoveries to make sense of the mind

- By Helen Hackett

Full of ideas

A woodcut of the brain from Andreas Vesalius's groundbreaking 1543 treatise On the Fabric of the Human Body. The Elizabethans subscribed to both new scientific theories and ancient beliefs about the workings of the mind

For him that hath lost his mind, the bestselling Tudor writer Thomas Moulton recommended shaving the top of the patient's head, then applying a mat of plant fibre to the bald patch. After a sleep, he reassured, he shall be right weak, and sober enough. While this treatment seems bizarre today, it reveals a crucial element of Elizabethan beliefs about mental wellbeing: the mind and body were intrinsically connected, so any disorders of the brain could be treated via remedies that were applied to the body.

As well as consulting medical books such as Moulton's, many Elizabethans sought the advice of Simon Forman, a popular London physician. Forman, too, sometimes prescribed physiological remedies for mental afflictions. But his chief diagnostic method was - to our eyes - decidedly unusual. He always began by casting a patient's astrological chart, reflecting the contemporary belief that both mind and body were affected by the movements of the stars and planets.

Sample study

A doctor examines a patient's urine in this 1519 woodcut. The physician Simon Forman said the diseases of the mind are not seen in a piss-pot

Mental conditions were thought to be caused by wayward humours and the position of the stars