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isease (1330) refers to“absence of ease, uneasiness, discomfort; inconvenience, annoyance; disquiet,disturbance; trouble”3. This meaning is not related to illness or malady, but about mentalcondition. The definition of disease has been gradually enriched later. In 1393, diseasewas explained as “a condition of the body, or of some part or organ of the body, inwhich its functions are disturbed or deranged”4and thus it refers to illness, sickness,and malady with which people are familiar nowadays.Elizabethan people’s understanding about disease is profound and complicated.Their belief of disease foremost sprouts from Greek philosophers’ thoughts. Sigeristpoints out that Greek “Pythagoreans believed they could prevent disturbances in thebody and mind through submitting themselves to a strict mental and physical diet; lostbalance can be restored by medicine from nature and music” (qtd. in Healy 19). Inaddition, Hippocrates’ theory of four humors, which reaches its fullest development inGalen, also exerts great influence on Elizabethan people’s idea about disease. Accordingto Galenic physiology, the four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile)“collectively were the means whereby an individual’s overall complexional balance wasmaintained or altered” (Sirasisi 106). It is the four humors that shape individual’s healthand illness. If one humor prevails in an abnormal way compared with others,individual’s overall complexional balance will be broken, which consequently leads todisease. Therefore, the excess humors are supposed to be expelled with the help ofphysician for the sake of individual’s health. The physician’s role is to aid this naturalprocess of purging and re-balancing to return their patients to a state of balance or ease.Furthermore, the individual can also keep their own health by practicing moderation tokeep the humors balanced, such as strict and moderate diet.
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Chapter OneDisease as Enemy: The Diseased Religious Forces

A. Disease and the Catholic Invasion
In Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, regarding the Catholic as disease can easily beidentified, and syphilis and plague are the most prominent ones. Syphilis is a newdisease in the sixteenth century, but this new disease brings catastrophic consequence.Professor Tognotti remarks that “leprosy and elephantiasis were indeed horrific, yetsyphilis surpassed them in its ability to disfigure and decompose bodies” (103). Hisremark shows that syphilis brings great pain and damage to human body. Furthermore,just like plague, this new disease in Elizabethan time is usually in epidemic form, so alarger amount of people suffers from this new disease. Generally, there are two kinds ofexplanations about the origination of syphilis. The first theory holds that syphilis firstappeared in Naples in its epidemic form in 1495, as the result of the invasion of Frencharmy. Therefore, syphilis is also called as the French Disease, or the Disease of Naples.The second theory holds that this new disease was brought to Europe by Columbus’strip from America. Both of the two explanations show that syphilis is exogenous andcontagious disease, and usually locates itself on a foreign body (the French Army andthe natives in America). Therefore, syphilis is gradually regards as an exogenous disease,instead of the result of unbalance of inner humors.2And this new disease is frequentlydiscussed by the writers in the Spenser’s time, such as Thomas Dekker