Middle Ages
The term was common in Middle English, often written as fisnamy or visnomy (as in the Tale of Beryn, a 15th-century sequel to the Canterbury Tales: "I knowe wele by thy fisnamy, thy kynd it were to stele").
Physiognomy's validity was once widely accepted, and it was taught in universities until the time of Henry VIII of England, who outlawed it (along with "Palmestrye") in 1531. Around this time, scholastic leaders settled on the more erudite Greek form 'physiognomy' and began to discourage the whole concept of 'fisnamy'.
The great inventor, scientist and artist, Leonardo da Vinci, was a critic of physiognomy in the early 16th century he said 'I do not concern myself with false physiognomy...there is no truth in them and this can be proven because these chimeras have no scientific foundation' He did however believe that lines caused by facial expressions could indicate personality traits i.e. 'those who have deep and noticeable lines between the eyebrows are irascible'
Read more about this topic: Physiognomy
Famous quotes related to middle ages:
“In public buildings set aside for the care and maintenance of the goods of the middle ages, a staff of civil service art attendants praise all the dead, irrelevant scribblings and scrawlings that, at best, have only historical interest for idiots and layabouts.”
—George Grosz (1893–1959)
“Of all the barbarous middle ages, that
Which is most barbarous is the middle age
Of man! it is—I really scarce know what;
But when we hover between fool and sage,
And don’t know justly what we would be at—
A period something like a printed page,
Black letter upon foolscap, while our hair
Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)