Temperament (Astrological)

Definition

In traditional astrology, temperament is the leading humoral or elemental flavour of a chart — its dominant cast — found by weighing several things together: the rising sign and its ruler, the Moon and its state, the season you were born in, and how the planets spread across the four elements. The result sorts a person into one of four humoral types: sanguine (Air, hot-moist — warm and sociable), choleric (Fire, hot-dry — decisive and quick-tempered), melancholic (Earth, cold-dry — methodical and inward), or phlegmatic (Water, cold-moist — receptive and emotionally attuned).

In Tradition

Across Hellenistic, Arabic-medieval, and Renaissance Latin medical astrology, judging temperament was the chart-side twin of a physician’s humoral diagnosis: the constitution read from a birth chart was checked against the four-humor scheme to find someone’s baseline vulnerabilities and to guide advice on diet, herbs, and lifestyle. Modern revival practice keeps the framework as historical reference and as a personality typology — one kept distinct from any clinical diagnosis.

In Practice

The astrologer weighs each of the main indicators — the rising sign, the ruler of the Ascendant, the Moon’s sign and phase, the season of birth, and how the planets fall across the elements — and tallies them by element. The leading element names the temperament: mostly Air is sanguine, Fire is choleric, Earth is melancholic, Water is phlegmatic. Mixed results are common — sanguine-choleric, melancholic-phlegmatic — and the second flavour shades the first. In the Culpeper–Cornell tradition, treatment then matched an herb’s planetary ruler to the imbalance shown; in modern psychological astrology, the same typology is used for personality and counselling work.

Historical Origin

Judging temperament from a chart comes out of the Hippocratic–Galenic humoral framework by way of Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos III.12. Bonatti’s Liber Astronomiae (Lean P14) preserves the medieval Latin catalogue of temperament by planet — Saturn melancholic, Jupiter sanguine, Mars choleric. Obert’s Classical Seven Planets (Lean P01–P03) preserves it humor by humor — phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic, sanguine. Rudhyar’s Astrology of Personality (Lean P03) gives a 20th-century reframing of the four temperaments; Culpeper (1652, public domain) and Cornell (1933) consolidate the modern reception.

Etymology

Origin: Latin. Meaning: From temperamentum (proper mixture) — the balanced blending of humoral qualities.

Further Reading

• Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos (Book III)
• Guido Bonatti, Liber Astronomiae
• H. L. Cornell, Encyclopedia of Medical Astrology