temperamencie

Temperamencie is an archival or variant spelling of the broader term temperament, used in historical writings to denote a person’s disposition or the tuning of a system. In English and other languages, the form appears in medieval and early modern texts to describe not only moods and character but also the balance of mechanisms that govern performance, whether in the body or in an instrument.

In medical and philosophical contexts, temperamencie often referred to humoral theory. The four temperaments—sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic—were believed to arise from bodily fluids and to determine temperament, health, and susceptibility to disease. Treatments and prognoses were framed around restoring or maintaining the appropriate temperamencie.

In contemporary psychology, temperament is understood as instinctual and relatively stable individual differences present from early life, influencing emotional reactivity and self-regulation. It is distinguished from personality, which develops with experience and environment. Modern models typically describe temperament along dimensions such as activity level, sensitivity, and mood.

In music, temperaments or temperamencies describe tuning systems that adjust intervals to accommodate playing in multiple keys. Before equal temperament became standard, tunings such as meantone and well temperament aimed to balance consonance and modulation across keys, often at the expense of uniformity. The adoption of equal temperament in the 18th–19th centuries facilitated consistent intonation across the keyboard and keys.

Today, temperamencie is primarily of historical interest. The term survives as a variant spelling in older texts, while modern discussions use distinct, more precise terms for temperament in psychology and music.