A Cultural History of the Emotions in the Late Medieval, Reformation, and Renaissance Age

The period 1300-1600 was one of intense and far-reaching emotional realignments in European culture. New desires and developments in politics, religion, philosophy, the arts, and literature fundamentally changed emotional attitudes to history, creating the sense of a rupture from the immediate past. In this volatile context, cultural products of all kinds offered competing objects of love, hate, hope and fear. Art, music, dance, and song provided new models of family affection, interpersonal intimacy, the relationship with God, and gender and national identities. The public and private spaces of courts, cities and houses shaped the practices and rituals in which emotional lives were expressed and understood. Scientific and medical discoveries changed emotional relations to the cosmos, the natural world, and the body. Both continuing traditions and new sources of cultural authority made emotions central to the concept of human nature, and involved them in every aspect of existence.