Plague, Witchcraft and Fear. Notes on the Emotional Community of an Early Modern English Puritan Clergyman
Abstract
The article aims to analyze two treatises written by the English puritan clergyman Henry Holland. The purpose will be to explore the emotional community to which he belonged: namely a group in which people observe the same norms of emotional expression, and value or devalue the same or related specific emotions. From the reading of his works on witchcraft and on a latest outburst of a plague it could be determined that fear was one of the cornerstones of puritan emotionality. Nevertheless, this paper argues that the representation of that emotion encompassed substantial nuances. On the one hand, the high theological culture in which Holland participated positively acknowledged those consciences troubled by the fear of God and sin as those predestined to salvation. On the other hand, dreading about minor causes such as the acts of witches and the devil, or fearing nature, understood as an autonomous entity from God's will when a personal or collective calamity occurred, was considered as a lack of confidence in the divine providence, as well as a token of a reprobate soul.Downloads
References
Almond, P. (2008). The Witches of Warboys. An Extraordinary Story of Sorcery, Sadism and Satanic Possession. Londres - Nueva York: I. B. Tauris.
Almond, P. (2011). England’s First Demonologist. Reginald Scot and ‘The Discoverie of Witchcraft’. Londres - Nueva York: I. B. Tauris.
Álvarez Recio, L. (2006). Rameras de Babilonia. Historia cultural del anticatolicismo en la Inglaterra Tudor. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca.
Baseotto, P. (2012). Theology and Interiority: Emotions as Evidence of the Working Grace in Elizabethan and Stuart Conversion Narratives. En J. Liliequist (Ed.), A History of Emotions (1200-1800) (65-78). Londres - Nueva York: Routledge.
Benedictow, O. (2011). What Disease was Plague? On the Controversy over the Microbiological Identity of Plague Epidemics of the Past. Leiden: Brill.
Bjerg, María (2019). Una genealogía de la historia de las emociones. Quinto Sol, 23(1), 1-20.
Boddice, R. (2018). The History of Emotions. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Bostridge, I. (1997). Witchcraft and its transformations c. 1650-1750. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bourke, J. (2003). Feature: Fear, Ambivalence and Admiration. History Workshop, 55, 111-133.
Bremer, F. (2006). Articles of Religion. En F. Bremer y T. Webster (Eds.), Puritans and Puritanism in England and America. A Comprehensive Encyclopedia (313-315). Santa Bárbara: ABC Clio.
Clark, S. (1997). Thinking with Demons. The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Cohn, S. (2010). Cultures of Plague. Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Collinson, P. (1990). The Elizabethan Puritan Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Collinson, P. (2003). Elizabethan Essays. Londres: The Hambledon Press.
Collinson, P. (2006). From Cranmer to Sancroft. Londres: Hambledon Continuum.
Corey, R. (2004). Fear. The History of a Political Idea. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cosby, B. (2008). Toward a Definition of ‘Puritan’ and ‘Puritanism’: A Study in Puritan Historiography. Churchman, 122(4), 297-314.
Doran, S. (1994). Elizabeth I and Religion 1558-1603. Londres - Nueva York: Routledge.
Durston C. y Eales J. (1996). Introduction: The Puritan Ethos, 1560-1700. En C. Durston y J. Eales (Eds.), The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560-1700 (1-31). Nueva York: St. Martin Press.
Elmer, P. (2016). Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frevert, U. (2011). Emotions in History. Lost and Found. Budapest - Nueva York: CEU Press.
Gaskill, M. (2013). Witchcraft Trials in England. En B. Levack (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (283-299). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goodare, J., Voltmer, R., y Willumsen L. H. (Eds.). (2020). Demonology and Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Europe. Londres - Nueva York: Routledge.
Grell, P. (1990). Plague in Elizabethan and Stuart London: The Dutch Response. Medical History, 34, 424-439.
Haller, W. (1938). The Rise of Puritanism: or, the way to the new Jerusalem as set forth in pulpit and press from Thomas Cartwright to John Lilburne and John Milton, 1570-1643. Nueva York: Columbia University Press.
Harvey, K. (2006). Providence. En F. Bremer y T. Webster (Eds.), Puritans and Puritanism in England and America. A Comprehensive Encyclopedia (497-499). Santa Bárbara: ABC Clio.
Hill, C. (1993). Review: The Persecutory Imagination: English Puritanism and the Literature of Religious Despair. Literature & History, 2(2), 96-98.
Holland, H. (1590). A Treatise Against Witchcraft. Londres: John Legatt.
Holland, H. (1603). Spirituall Preservatives against the Pestilence. Londres: John Browne y Roger Jackson.
Johnstone, N. (2006). The Devil and Demonism in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jones, K. (2016). Thomas Goodwin and the ‘Supreme Happiness of Man’. En A. Ryrie y T. Schwanda (Eds.), Puritanism and Emotion in the Early Modern World (47-69). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Karant-Nunn, S. (2010). The Reformation of Feeling. Shaping the Religious Emotions in Early Modern Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kocher, P. (1950). The Idea of God in Elizabethan Medicine. Journal of the History of Ideas, 11(1), 3-29.
Levack, B. (2006). The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe. Nueva York: Routledge.
Lloyd Cohen, Ch. (1986). God´s Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience. Nueva York: Oxford University Press.
Lynch, A. (2017). Emotional Community. En S. Broomhall (Ed.), Early Modern Emotions (3-6). Londres - Nueva York: Routledge.
MacCulloch, D. (2001). The Later Reformation in England, 1547-1603. Nueva York: Palgrave.
MacDonald, M. (1992). The Farefull Estate of Francis Spira: Narrative, Identity, and Emotion in Early Modern England. Journal of British Studies, 31(1), 32-61.
Macfarlane, A. (1999 [1970]). Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England. A Regional and Comparative Study. Londres: Routledge.
Macfarlane, A., Harrison, S. y Jardine, C. (1977). Reconstructing Historical Communities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Machielsen, J. (Ed.). (2020). The Science of Demons. Early Modern Authors Facing Witchcraft and the Devil. Londres - Nueva York: Routledge.
Marotti, A. (Ed.). (1999). Catholicism and Anti-Catholicism in Early Modern English Texts. Basingstoke - Londres: Palgrave Macmillan.
Matt, S. y Stearns, P. (2014). Introduction. En S. Matts y P. Stearns (Eds.), Doing Emotions History (1-16). Urbana - Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Méndez, A. (2012). Las Brujas imposibles: la teología de Reginald Scot. Escepticismo radical y distanciamiento de la divinidad. Tiempos Modernos, Revista de Historia Moderna, 7(24), 1-31.
Méndez, A. (2020). El infierno está vacío. Demonología, caza de brujas y reforma en la Inglaterra temprano-moderna (s. XVI y XVII). Valencia: Publicacions Universitat de València.
Méndez, A. (En prensa). Endemoniados, impostores o enfermos. Discernimiento de espíritus en los tratados demonológicos de la Inglaterra reformada (1580-1630). El futuro del pasado. Revista electrónica de historia, 12.
Mullaney. S. (2015). The Reformation of Emotions in the Age of Shakespeare. Chicago - Londres: The University of Chicago Press.
Oatley, K. (2004). Emotions. A Brief History. Maldon - Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Oldridge, D. (2010). The Devil in Tudor and Stuart England. Gloucestershire: The History Press.
Op’t Hof, W. (2016). Puritan Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Piety. En A. Ryrie y T. Schwanda (Eds.), Puritanism and Emotion in the Early Modern World (213-240). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Plamper, J. (2015). The History of Emotions. An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reddy, W. (2004). The Navigation of Feeling. A Framework for the History of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rosenwein, B. (2002). Worrying About Emotions in History. American Historical Review, 107(3), 821-845.
Rosenwein B. (2006). Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages. Ithaca y Londres: Cornell University Press.
Rosenwein, B. (2010a). Thinking Historically about Medieval Emotions. History Compass, 8(8), 828-842.
Rosenwein, B. (2010b). Problems and Methods in the History of Emotions. Passion in Context, 1, 1-32.
Rosenwein, B. (2012). Theories of Change in the History of Emotions. En J. Liliequist (Ed.), A History of Emotions (1200-1800) (7-20). Londres - Nueva York: Routledge.
Rosenwein, B. (2018). Were Puritan Emotions Gendered? (New England, Mid-1600s). Clio. Women, Gender, History, 47(1), 67-91.
Rubin, J. (1994). Religious Melancholy and Protestant Experience in America. Nueva York - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ryrie, A. (2013). Being Protestant in Reformation Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scheer, M. (2012). Are Emotions a Kind of Practice (and Is That What Makes Them Have a History?) A Burdieuian Approach to Understanding Emotion. History and Theory, 51, 193-220.
Schwanda, T. (2016). The Saints’ Desire and Delight to Be with Christ. En A. Ryrie y T. Schwanda (Eds.), Puritanism and Emotion in the Early Modern World (70-93). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Sharpe, J. (1996). Instruments of Darkness. Witchcraft in England 1550-1750. Londres: Penguin.
Sharpe, J. (2017). The Demonologists. En O. Davies (Ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Witchcraft and Magic (65-96). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Simpson, J. (2019). The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism. Cambridge - Londres: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Slack, P. (1998). Responses to Plague in Early Modern Europe: The Implications of Public Health. Social Research, 55(3), 433-453.
Slack, P. (2012). Plague. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Solomon, R. (1976). The Passions. Garden City: Anchor Press.
Stachniewski, J. (1991). The Persecutory Imagination: English Puritanism and the Literature of Religious Despair. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stearns, P. y Stearns, C. (1985). Emotionology: Clarifying the History of Emotions and Emotional Standards. American Historical Review, 90, 813-836.
Stearns, P. y Stearns, C. (1986). Anger: The Struggle for Emotional Control in America’s History. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Tarbin, S. (2015). Raising Girls and Boys: Fear, Awe, and Dread in the Early Modern Household. En S. Broomhall (Ed.), Authority, Gender and Emotions in Late Medieval and Early Modern England (106-130). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Thomas, K. (1991 [1971]). Religion and the Decline of Magic. Studies in the Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England. Londres: Penguin.
Thomas, K. (2009). The Ends of Life. Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ticineto Clough, P. (2007). Introduction. En P. Ticineto Clough y J. Halley (Eds.), The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social (1-33). Durham: Duke University Press.
Totaro, R. (2011). Introduction. En R. Totaro y E. Gilman (Eds.), Representing the Plague in Early Modern England (1-34). Londres - Nueva York: Routledge.
Totaro, R. y Gilman, E. (Eds.) (2011). Representing the Plague in Early Modern England. Londres - Nueva York: Routledge.
Tyacke, N. (1987). Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism c. 1590-1640. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wallace, D. (2006). Predestination. En F. Bremer y T. Webster (Eds.), Puritans and Puritanism in England and America. A Comprehensive Encyclopedia (491-493). Santa Bárbara: ABC Clio.
Wallis, P. (2006). Plagues, Morality and the Place of Medicine in Early Modern London. The English Historical Review, 121(490), 1-24.
Walsham, A. (2003). Providence in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Walsham, A. (2016). Deciphering Divina Wrath and Displaying Godly Sorrow: Prividentialism and Emotion in Early Modern England. En J. Spinks y C. Zika (Eds.), Disaster, Death and the Emotions in the Shadow of the Apocalypse, (1400-1700) (21-43). Basinkgstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Walzer, M. (1965). The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wierzbicka, A. (1999). Emotions across Languages and Culture: Diversity and Universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wikan, U. (2008). Passions as Cognitive and Moral Mistakes: The Case of Honor Killings in Europe. En M. Vandekerckhove et al. (Eds.), Regulating Emotions: Culture, Social Necessity, and Biological Inheritance (271-290). Maldon y Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Winship, M. (2001). Weak Christians, Backsliders, and Carnal Gospelers: Assurance of Salvation and the Pastoral Origins of Puritan Practical Divinity in the 1580s. Church History, 70(3), 462-481.
Winship, M. (2006). Assurance of Salvation. En F. Bremer y T. Webster (Eds.), Puritans and Puritanism in England and America. A Comprehensive Encyclopedia (315-316). Santa Barbara: ABC Clio.
Winship, M. (2019). Hot Protestants. A History of Puritanism in England and America. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Copyright (c) 2021 Anales de Historia Antigua, Medieval y Moderna
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
