From Plato and Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen, through the medieval commentators, the Elizabethans inherited a body of complex psychological principles. An examination of these principles and their bearing on The Faerie Queene has so far been only casual and incidental. Since in Book ii, Canto ix, the poet combines one of the most widely used of medieval motifs—the conception of the body as a world, city, or castle—with certain current doctrines of psychology, such an inquiry is especially apposite. Spenser's use of the abundant contemporaneous literature of psychology affords material for an extended treatment such as that which Miss Anderson has made of Shakespeare's plays. The present study purposes to set forth one aspect of his system of psychology—his psychology of memory in the allegory of the Castle of Alma, to make clear the relationship of his system to the current Elizabethan doctrines, and to establish the purpose of certain departures from those doctrines.