Date: 1390

"Minerve for the hed thei soghten, / For sche was wys, and of a man / The wit and reson which he can / Is in the celles of the brayn, / Wherof thei made hire soverain."

— Gower, John (c. 1330-1408)

Date: Trans. 1425

"þe brayn..is þe place & þe habitacioun of þe resonable soule, as G[alen] hym selfe seid."

— Guy de Chauliac (c.1300-1368)

Date: w. c. 1425-1440

"Then wolle the chambir of my thought trewly / Of plesaunce take a light in eche parté / Such ioy wolle him aray so fresshe and hy / That waken must myn heuy hert slepé / Out of his fowle and sluggissh slogardé."

— Charles [d'Orléans], duke of Orléans (1394-1465)

Date: 1445

"Eche of þese [v inward bodili wittis: commune witt, ymaginacioun, ffantasie, estimacioun, mind] han to hem her propre chaumbres in þe brayn..as philosophris seyn."

— Pecock, Reginald (c.1395-1460)

Date: 1530

"Paucis libris vir sapiens contentus est, et quanto sapientior, tanto pauciorum codicum est indigus. Egregie autem eruditus in scrinio pectoris libriariam circunfert."

— Mair [Major], John (1467-1550)

Date: 1532

[The theater of the mind is] "marked with many images, and full of little boxes"

— Camillo, Giulio (1480-1544)

Date: w. 1365, trans. 1579

"And euerie one hath continuall warre with him selfe in the most secret closet of his minde."

— Petrarch (1304-1374); Twyne, Thomas (1543–1613)

Date: 1590

The body is a Castle

— Spenser, Edmund (1552-1599)

Date: 1590?, 1623

"O thou that dost inhabit in my breast , / Leave not the mansion so long tenantless / Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall / And leave no memory of what it was."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1592

Elizabeth preferred not "to make windows into men's hearts and secret thoughts, except the abundance of them did overflow into overt and express acts and affirmations."

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)