Fluxes: The Early Modern Body and the Emotions Author(s): Ulinka Rublack and Pamela Selwyn Source:

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ARTICLES AND ESSAYS Fluxes: the Early Modern Body and the Emotions by UlinkaRublack
translated PamelaSelwyn by
In 1574,the ambassador OgierGhislainde Busbecqset forthon his travels. In his very firstreportto EmperorMaximilian he relatedthat: II, YesterdayI delayed one day at Salzburgto look aftermy health;for the samereasonI also spentone dayat Augsburg. on the thirdstageback For from Vienna my blood began to flow from me in large quantitiesalong with urine,but withoutany sensationof painor greaterinconvenienceof any sort.1 Where did this mixtureof urine and blood come from?The rattlingof the coach over stones and ruts in the road had jostled and shaken the ambassador,and his bodily fluidsalong with him. He believed that an outflow was generallypurifying,and one did well to give it time. Earlymodernperceptionsof the body were markedby this attentiveness to bodily fluidsand juices, to their motions, interruptions, consistencyand withheat, cold, emotions,nourishment movement, purityin interaction and such as coach travelling.2In 1767, Tissot, the Swiss popularizerof the medicalEnlightenment,still definedhealth as a state in whichnone of the bodily fluidshad too much or too little movement.3 Thus many symptoms that early modernsources describeas matter-of-fact normalare quite and alien to our own systemsof meaning.The 1689funeralsermonfor the wife of the Wurttemberg publisherandbooksellerPhilibertBrunn,for example, describeshow in Januaryof that year she was plagued by Seitenstechen, sharppainsin her sides.They did not, however,preventher fromattending the burialof her mother-in-law, late FrauCotta,in May.There,she was the so overcome 'by a complete attackof hectic' (eine Hectic) that despite all efforts,and 'the physician'sand her husband'sindefatigableloyalty,attentions and care', the consuming heat could not be reduced so that 'her strengthand vitaljuices' driedup and did not flow.4Wasfever the cause of death?Whatwere these sharppainsin the side? Contemporary definitions make it difficult to say with any certainty that she was suffering from
History Workshop Journal Issue 53 C)History Workshop Journal 2002

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pleurisy.5The 'flow' itself was not merely a fluid, but the juice of life. Dryness meant death. Evidenceof this kindprovokesthe intriguing question:may it have been the case in the earlymodernperiodnot only that bodilyexistencewas conceived of differentlyfrom today, but also that this body actuallybehaved differently?6The body itself was not regarded as a whole and clearly delimitedentity, but rather,as MichailBakhtinso aptly put it, was understood as somethingthat was constantlychanging,absorbingand excreting, It flowing,sweating,beingbled, cuppedandpurged.7 was clearlysituatedin context of a relationship to the world whose the continually-changing precise effect was never stable or predictable,so that one simply had to bleedsubmitto it - to the terrorthatfrozethe blood, the suddentrembling, ing or urinationthat literallystoppedthe ambassador Busbecqin his tracks. This experienceof the blood's and fluids'manyoutlets and consistencies generally helped constitute the early modern experience of being in the world. The modern concern with the 'anatomy of solid parts' and the Duden 'physiological interplayof organs'playedlittle role here, as Barbara the has written.8 Naturally, organsin themselveswere extremelyimportant, withthe humoursandjuices.Whenthe flowof juices but only in conjunction could not be regulated distress ensued. In August 1582, for example, a fromBreslauwroteto the Berlinphysicianand journeyman barber-surgeon alchemistThurneisserof his great 'anxiety,sorrow,anguishand fear'. The reason for his anxiety was a strangeflowingto and fro 'in my blood and whole body'.Indeed,his blood appearedno longerto have any 'permanent place', 'for which God in Heaven have mercy'.It often happened'when I touch or feel myself, or when I sit still and turn about, and when I hear talking... that the blood steals upon me in all my limbs as if someone had mixed something into it'. The sole explanationthat the barber-surgeon could imaginefor this odd sense of his blood being everywherewas sorcery. The only other possible cause was a sudden shock that he had sufferedin his youth, after which he had taken a drink,'and I do not doubt that this same drinkstartledand inspiredmy blood'. Then he added 'but I cannot say it for certain'.9 In addition, since antiquity,the emotions were often experiencedas a flow.10Being a social creature meant having feelings, such as grief and sorrow,that could easily become unbalancedand thereforeplace humans in physicaldanger.Johannvon Beverwyckeven devoted the firstbook of his early seventeenth-centurybest-seller, The Treasury Health, to the of 'motions of the heart' (Bewegingendes Gemoets), one of the six 'nonnaturals'accordingto the Hippocraticand Galenictraditions.1" heart, The for instance,moved by trembling,expandingand contracting,and it did so not just metaphorically, also in reality.12 patient of the seventeenthbut A centuryEnglish physicianRichardNapier recounted that since the death of her baby she had found herself frightenedby the cry of an owl, trembled frequentlyand 'had a sinking heart'.13 a letter at Christmas1518 In Klara Pirckheimerasked her brother Willibald (after he had expressed

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annoyance at their sister Caritas) 'kindly ... not to allow your heart to become bitteragainstus, for I well know that such sorrowonly makesyour illness worse'.14 This article will examine how bodily fluids were perceived duringthis time and how, in the experienceof earlymodernelite and commonpeople, was We subjectivity interwovenwith idiomsof embodiedexperience.15 will turn, first,to three problematizations that shaped views of embodiedfeelings andfluxesin differentculturalmilieuxbetween1580and 1660,andthen to some of the transformations symbolic and social practice that may of have shapedthese understandings. AND THE OPENINGOF THE HEART MELANCHOLY THROUGH FRIENDSHIP an Earlymodernphilosophers, elite of university-educated whosechief men occupationsincluded reflectingupon the passions and their influenceon humanbehaviour,agreed on the axiomaticassumptionthat feelings could not be ignored.To show no emotion was, firstly,'barbaric', secondly, and dangerous.Unexpressedfeelings could assume a bodily form.16 Balance, the commondenominator this philosophical in discussion,was to be striven for in this worldby relativizingand yet also expressingfeelings. This was what made the ideal of friendship so important. Classical humanisteducationtransmitted ideal to wealthymen. It was necessary the to maintainthe flow of sociableemotion,to avoidpsychosomatic blockage. In his much-read essay on friendship, FrancisBacon (1561-1626)wrotethat the chief benefit of friendshipwas 'the ease and dischargeof the fullness and swellingsof the heart',which were the root of all passions.We know, he explains, that all blockages in the body are dangerous,and it was no differentin the mind. One could take medicinesagainstcongestionof the liver, lung or brain,'but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend,to whom you may impartgriefs,joys, fears, hopes, suspicions,counsels, and whatsoeverlieth upon the heart to oppressit'. Those who have no friends 'to open themselvesunto are cannibalsof their own hearts'.17 Bacon was concerned not with a rational control of the emotions but ratherwith their flow in confidingand trustingverbaltransmission. Bacon conceived of mind and body not dualistically, as interrelated.Because but feelingsswelledthe heartand suchswellings,if not relieved,were physically and mentallyperilous,openness to exchangewas a preconditionof human life. As a consequence, a lonely person could neither experience true pleasurenor cope with grief. The price of self-sufficiency, lonelinessor the denial of emotion was that one became a cannibalof one's own heart,mad, lifeless, blocked and suffocated.Bacon consequentlydid not even consider the extent to whichmen, at least, could use reason to mastertheir feelings, and thus themselves, in order to attain self-sufficiency.'Self-sufficiency' meant inhumanityand death, but man lived by sharingjoy and sorrow,by the flow of emotionwhich,as Bacon describesit, also broughtfeelingsback

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in an astonishingmanner.A trouble sharedwas a trouble halved, while a joy sharedwas a joy doubled. Naturally,men of the upper classes had to choose very carefullythe persons to whom they unburdenedthemselves. They had to rely upon men of their own rank who appearedtrustworthy and free of envy. In the friendshipideal of such male elites therefore,the communal ethos of sharing 'joy and suffering/ love and suffering'- a formula that appears in many citizenshipoaths in German cities of the fifteenthand sixteenthcenturiesand could, at least ideally,representpart of 'the core of what citizensunderstoodas commonality' was transferred to the realmof privateconfidences.18 the Consequently, questionof who the of addresseesof the communication joy and sorrowwere became central and the new role of the confidantwas created. Bacon's work does not addressthe furtherobstaclesto conveyingandresolvingemotionsonce this confidanthad been found. In his essay on the regimenof health Bacon also emphasizedthat every human being, constitution,age and social context created a variationof reactionsof 'nature'.The only rule of thumbhere was that one lived longer if one ate, slept and moved in a 'free-mindedand cheerful'state. For that reason one should, in turn, avoid envy, anxieties, 'angerfrettinginwards', 'subtle, knotty questions',joyful over-excitementand 'sadness not communicated'.Such natural-philosophical thinking also recommendedcontemplating the variety of nature and existence as a form of treatment. Instead of despairingat unexpectedevents and one's lack of control over them, one had to practisehope, curiosity,and pleasantwonder at the surprisingrich variety of life. For that reason, the early modern gentleman's of studywas chock full of 'novelties'.Bacon spoke with enthusiasm 'studies that fill the mind with splendidand illustriousobjects (as histories,fables and contemplationsof nature)'.19 Contemplation, too, must not linger too and long on a single object.Throughwonder,joyful astonishment the constant searchfor the new, contemplationdid more thanjust move the mind; it was alwaystied to communication. Preciousnovelties virtuallycried out to be displayed to the cognoscenti,as well as to be comparedand commented upon. For that reasonearlymodernlibrariesand studieswere sites of the mostintensesociability,20 whichwelcomedtravellers withtheirinspiras ing commentsandfreshastonishment, long as the continuityof exchange with a few trustedfriendswas maintained.For Bacon and men of his class in early modernEngland,all of these practicesbelonged to the regimenof healthwhichwas necessaryin orderto wardoff melancholy, hardeningand estrangementfrom the world, and hence solitude, illness and a miserable
death.21

TROUBLED HEARTS The second centraldiscussionof the somatizationof emotion can be found in the fields of piety and medicine.In contrastto Bacon, religiousthinkers

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broadlyviewed failureas part of humanexistence. For them, people were as obdurateas stones.'Opening'requiredpiouspractice,a piouscommunity that ritualizedreconciliation,22 God's help. It could not be achievedby and human power alone. For that reason, illness was subject to individual responsibility only to a limitedextent, as when people deliberatelyacted in such a way as to unbalancenature(drinkingtoo muchwine or engagingin wild dancing, for example). This aspect was increasinglyemphasizedin early modern medical and theological literature, thus identifying the Therewas, in turn, problemof concernfor the self as concernwith excess.23 generalagreementthat fear and angercould take a physicalform.Therapy and prevention could, accordingly,consist of two interlockingelements: Christianand medicalpractice.As shepherdsof souls, pastorscould themselves assumea 'medical'role or at least that of a providerof advice.24 of Thisblurring functionsbetweenmedicineandtheologyin an age when is religionand science did not yet representseparateworld-views apparent in the lettersthatThurneisser exchangedat the end of the sixteenthcentury. The Brandenburg court physicianusuallybegan his medicaladvice letters with a pious prefaceof the followingkind: The poor and miserablehumanrace, howeverlofty and splendidit may be, was neverthelesscreated so tender and fragileby God and Nature, that no other creature,either born or otherwise made, can expect so much accident,sadness,miseryand wretchedness,and be plaguedwith such manifoldsufferings,trials, sickness and other ineffable infirmities that, had God in his infinitewisdomnot createdsome hope of amelioration, alongside healing medicines, the human race, mindful of its could never enjoy a momentof cheer.25 wretchedness, The phrasingsoundsratherstereotypical.That, however,is preciselywhat makes the passageso memorablein its emphasison the wretchednessand of imponderability humanexistence and the uncontrollability suffering. of Thurneisser writingto a man who sufferedacutelyfromanxiousnessof was the heart (Herzbangheit), probablyone of the many countrysquireswho wrote to him from their estates with similarcomplaints.This man had 'a curiouscardiaca,or anxiousnessof the heart, so that the gentlemanoften felt sad and yet did not know why, and his heart thumped'.He also experienced dizzinessand other symptoms. Thurneisser's diagnosisdwelton the interrelationship betweenmindand body. If the heartwas too cold, the blood was insufficiently heated, and an
'evil damp' resulted. At times this could arouse rage, peevishness or melan-

cholic thoughts,along with dizzinessand buzzingin the ears. In this case, the physicalconstitutionappearsto determinethe mentalone, althoughthe question why the heart is too cold remains unanswered.Immediately following we find this same interactionrepresentedin the reverse order. The subjectwas the sinkingheart:

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Also when a man becomes angry,peevish or morose, or the gentleman easily growssad, and the past weighsmore heavilyupon him thanit does on otherpeople, his heartsinks,then I say thatthe corruptinfectedblood runs out of all his limbs and escapes to his heart,fillingit overfull. This produceda vapour,and the causticmatterin his blood made the limbs Here it was a social weak,powerless,as it filledhis pulse,veins andnerves.26 situation that caused a relativelynormal reaction of anger, reluctanceor grief.If, however,a gentlemantook these matterstoo muchto heart,catasit trophe quicklyfollowed as the bad blood rushedin. For Thurneisser was clear that all emotions originatedin the brain.But one experiencedthem elsewhere,namelyin the heart. as Grief moved anotherorganas well and, if one viewed life primarily a vale of tears,this was an importantsign in the semiologyof the body.This sentence in the preface organ was the eye. For that reason, Thurneisser's concerningwhat would happen if the human race were to become fully continuedas follows:the humanrace would awareof its true wretchedness 'never again appear cheerful, and its eyes, which were created to stir all and sadnessas well as to see, wouldnever againbe dryfor all theirdripping wasting'.They would 'be seen foreverflowing'.27 ENVY AND EMPATHY Communaldiscussionsof social blockage and how to resolve it centred thirdlyon hatred and envy, as is impressivelydemonstratedin notions of witchcraft.In early modernsociety, whichwas characterized scarcity,it by was generallyassumedthat envy of other people's possessionsor fertility and existedin manyrelationships could evoke powerfuldestructivedesires. After 1570, crop failures grew more frequent everywhere,winters were colder, and crises became the norm, as did wars and epidemicsafter 1618. The fear of envy also mounted, an emotion that so hardenedpeople that they allegedlysoughtto destroychildren,cows,fields,men andwomen.The most common nightmarevision of the witch became that of a 'dry',cold, sterile woman without any fat on her body.28 was perfidious('Whata She lovely child you have', she often told women before killing their babies), and so obsessed with her own deficienciesand disappointments that only bitternessremained.Her breastswere slack.Womentold how witcheshad stolen their milk and sucked the life out of their babies. Witcheswere old andno longermenstruated. blood in theirbodieswas not freshandred, The but black and putrid. It is no wonderthat a specificimage becamemixedup with these fearful notions. Those who were dry could not weep. In witch-trials(and later in the trials of infanticides),29 tears, or their absence,were cited as legal evidence. In 1615,Anna, wife of Hans Gruoberof Alpirsbach,was accusedof witchcraft. The bailiff reportedthat she was an old woman who had born

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nineteenchildrenin her firstmarriage, none in her second.Anna denied but all of the allegations against her, but the magistrateconsidered her an 'arrantwitch', 'crafty,eloquent and cunning',stubbornand malicious.Her gestureswere 'impudent,like those of a mercenarysoldier',she struckher fists againsther palms,paced back and forthin the interrogation room, and screamedthatif she had to die an innocentwoman,they could at least leave her her soul. She wept withoutsheddinga singletear, in whichshe 'proved' In herself 'suspiciousand witchy'.30 1628, the bailiff of the same district reportedon Jacob Kiifer'swife. Although she swore by God that she was not a witch, 'her eyes did not spill over'. And then the bailiffrecalledthat her eyes had not 'sweated'at her husband'sfuneraleither, despite the fact that the pastor had describedher husband'swretchedstate 'so piteously from the pulpit' that had she possessed but 'one drop of Christianblood, That same year the daughterof a she would have been moved to tears'.31 suspected witch told her interrogatorsthat she could no longer have 'a heart'for her mother., said this in front of her mother,appealing'with She streamingeyes to her soul ... and heart',but the latter remainedsilent or smiled at her daughter'as if it did not affect her'. The daughterhad also often reproachedher motherfor sleepingin church,askingwhy she did not remainat home and stay awayfrom churchif she wantedto sleep, but her mother had only answeredthat she consideredher, the daughter,to be a greaterwitch than herself.32 A medicalreportpreparedfor a witchtrialat Rothenburg der Tauber ob in 1652offered a scientificbasis for this theoryof tears. 'Properor natural' tears came ('as several highly-knowledgeable present-day philosophers agree')fromthe waterin which'the heartswims,as it were'.The motionof the heart sent the water into an arteryleadingto the head and from there to the eyes, 'out of whichtears then arise'.33 heart of a witch could no The longerbe moved becauseit was driedup and the surrounding waterwith it. Here, too, organand blood were interdependent, the heartwas not an and autonomous muscle. Because the water was absent, the witch was both literally and metaphoricallyincapable of being moved. Nothing moved inside her, and how could it be otherwisein someone so thoroughlyhardened? This impliedthat any attemptto touch her was in vain, for she and her body were cold and frozen.In keepingwith this semiologyof temperatures, tears of remorsewere hot and crocodiletears cold. All 'good' tears came from the heart and were hot. In the sixteenthcentury,the anatomist Colombofound that the heart was so warmthat one could scarcelyhold it in one's hand.34In the seventeenth century,physiciansincreasinglydisagreedabout whetherthis heat came fromthe soul or the heartitself. They wonderedwhetherthe heart'sblood was generatedexclusivelyin the body and circulatedregularlyor came from food and the stomachand could be drawnback and forth in all directions.Descartestook up Harvey'stheory of the circulationof the blood and consideredthe heart to be the originof all movement and blood in the body. The source of the heart'smovement

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was heat, and it was God-given.35 Thus, even in a naturalphilosophythat had turnedits back on Aristotle, Galen and notions of a soul, a cold heart could, in principle,be portrayedas a godforsakenheretic'sheart. In these ways, the witch had by the seventeenth century become an emblem for closure to the mercy, empathy, remorse and reconciliationthat defined Christiansand found their manifestationin tears (or at least the 'sweating eye') and open-heartedness.36 of In whatfollows I wish to show how suchunderstandings Christianity and communitywere interrelatedfirst with a symbolic practice such as the of Eucharistandsecondwiththe organization materialexchange.I shallask how factors such as the increase in population, state demands and new religious understandingsof human nature and spiritualitymight have underpinned changesin views of the body and emotions.I shallsuggestthat these changesshouldnot be explainedsimplyin termsof discursive medical shifts that were abstractedfrom such realities.Discoursesand their signifiaroseout of broaderculturalandmaterialcontexts canceto contemporaries which are often ignored.Just as the health of the physicalbody depended on the flow of fluids,so too, and analogously, communal health depend did on exchangeand reconciliation. This principledeterminedthe significance of both the Eucharistand the witch, who embodied new anxieties about of envy and disturbedrelationships exchangewithincommunitiesfrom the secondhalfof the sixteenthcenturyonwards.Moreover,as mercantile ideas gained currency,charity,generosity,hospitalityand exchange were more strictly regulated and social hierarchies reasserted, so perhaps more mechanicaland individualizedimages of the body and circulationdevelof oped. Understandings the social causationof illness and its communal consequences were certainly challenged by views that stressed the individual'sresponsibility managinghis or her own health. for EXCHANGE AND THE MEDIATIONOF FORGIVENESS In LutheranWurttemberg holy communionwas a ritualof swornkindness. Membersof the congregation with bitternessin theirheartswere supposed to refuse communion.After all, their bitternessarose from envy and anger towards those whom they could not forgive. The words used to forgive enemies literally stuck in the throats of communion-refusers. This also made them dangerousto the community,since they could cause disease. Neighboursand pastorsdid their best to encouragerepentance.Whenthat failed, they threatenedpunishment.In other words, the Eucharistwas an embodiedritualthat was intendedto regulatethe fear of animosityin the communitythrough the shared consumptionof bread and wine and the expression of forgiveness.For peace, as sixteenth-century people understood it, was largelyassociatedwithcommunalunity,the commongood and

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And the preconditionfor this was the flow of relationalfeelings,not piety.37 their hardening.Wine symbolicallyrepresentedthis flow of reconciliation and this communalbond. The bond was enacted, even before the Reformation, when bells were rung in Wurttembergvillages to call the kindhearted when a sick person received communion.At the same time, the well-to-dosent wine and food to the homes of the poor and needy. Shared communionat the home of an ailing parishionerwas intended to prevent illnesses brought on by the envy or animosityof a member of the community. Around 1580,however,these customswere frequentlyabolishedby the But church,to be met by the protestsof some communities. this was a sign of the times:the ostensible reason given for abolitionwas the risk of epidemics.Too many people were ill in the densely-populated villages of the late sixteenth century.Takingpersonal responsibilitymeant avoidingthe constantinsecurity thatsurrounded receivingandgiving,whichhadbecome immenselydelicatesocialprocessesin the last thirdof the sixteenthcentury. Segments of the post-Reformationchurch accordinglyopposed the old formsof communalsupport.Illnesswas thereto remindeach individual that he or she could sicken and die. One village mayor even suggested the privatizationof spiritualexercises:could not each member of the communityat least say a prayerfor the sick at home?In short,formercommunal structureswere eroded, and illness became a problemprimarily the ill for themselves. Because of the anxiety which ensued, witchcraft fantasies so often revolved around poisonous gifts, generally of food or wine, which were and offered,ingested and incorporated, then proveddeadly.The emerging territorialstate relied upon this fear, devaluingChristianmercy and communal obligations to the undeservingwherever it could. Countless laws were introducedprohibitinggift-giving,feasting,drinkingand magnanimity. The tax-payingsmall familyhouseholdwas to become the administrative unit that representedthe state (and increasinglymarginalized mobile groups).The definitionof particular processesof exchangeandthereforeof excessive flows of generosity and interchangeas superfluousappears to have been crucialin this process.The effect was to strengthenthe image of the witch as a dry,thin, infertileand bitterpersonwho threatenedthe communalbody. THE UTOPIAN BODY view of the solidarityamongall membersof society Althougha celebratory that was created by permanentborrowingand owing could thereforestill be imaginedin the sixteenth century,these contexts show how it collided with a now more-clearlyarticulatedpreference for clearly-definedand socially-limited exchangepractices.This collisionilluminatesan interesting
exchange in the third book of Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel of 1546.

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Rabelais evokes a vision of how the body and its organs operate in complete interdependence, particularly the flow of blood. The body is envisin aged here as a world without private property,in which all debtors and creditorsare linkedby their offerings.This at once comic andpoetic utopia is crownednot by the head but by the heart as the seat of the soul and of sympathy.Panurgeclaims that in the social world, as in a bodily world in which everyone was at once debtor and borrower,peace would inevitably instead,everything would reign.Therewouldbe no gluttony,envy or usury; circulate,reproduceitself and be createdanew.The naturalstate of man is to lend, borrowand owe. This worldis so benignthat everyone,aftertaking and processingnourishment,would immediatelythink of lending to the unborn.Each memberwouldtake some of the best food to the place where humanlife was conceived.Thiswouldbe done by loans anddebts,for which Naturepunishes reasoneven sexualitywas knownas the 'debtof marriage'. all those who refuse to pay the debt, afflictingthem with sensory disturbwith ancesandterriblepainsin the limbs.Lenders,in contrast,arerewarded 'pleasure, joy and sensual delight'.38Humour, satire and a Christianmaterialistutopia are all interwovenin this image. Pantagruel,however, replies in a contraryspirit.He insists that moral The integrityis associatedsolely with a high degree of self-sufficiency. ideal is not to be dependentupon and lend to others, since all people have the power to produce enough nourishmentthroughtheir own labour. In his One should ask view, borrowerstended to be liars and good-for-nothings. for a loan only as a last resort.Equally,one should give only to those who work but do not earn enough to supportthemselvesor who have suddenly lost their property.Even Pantagruel'seconomical use of language represents a perfect and disillusioningcounterpartto Panurge'senthusiasm. makesno mentionof the body,nor does he politicallyevoke the Pantagruel of community the members.His laconicwordscarrya hint of the new workhouse logic of conditionalmercy which would become widespreadin the seventeenthcentury,along with the decline of imagesof the body politic.39 And yet, as Natalie Davis has emphasized, every sixteenth-century person knew full well where Panurge's vision attempted to sugar-coat reality:in this political framework,gifts and reciprocitywere frequently deployed,but they also createdties thatwere intendedto secureadvantages and obligationsthat were impossibleor difficultto fulfil. They produced Rabelais ends guilty feelings, and were often quite close to corruption.40 with Panurgesayingthat he could not live long withoutgivingand taking, and with Pantagruelmerely closing the subject.For Davis, this dialogue expressesthe tension between the humanneeds for exchangeand generosand ity on the one hand and clear-cutresponsibilities limitson the other, a tension addressedsince the late MiddleAges (andradicalized the Reforby mation movements) particularlyaround the degree of social solidarity It in generatedby gifts.41 seems as if displacements this area of conflictmay have influenced perceptions of and fantasies about corporealityin this

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period,because the body was perceivedso stronglyas actingin relationto human interchangeand interactiveopenness or closure. Interactionwas cruciallystructured throughgifts and exchangerelationships. ILLNESSNARRATIVES Despite the slowly increasingpremium that was placed upon the individual's responsibilityfor many symptoms,people continued to rely on interpretationsthat evoked social causes. Medical practice also long remained reliant on diagnostic practices in which the combination of physical signs (such as the colour of the urine) and patient information Illnesses thus opened up a narrativespace that indidirectedtreatment.42 vidualscould use to explaintheir disordersin termsof disorderedrelationships ratherthan just disorderedphysiology.The movement of body and soul led to narrativesthat referredto experiencesof violence and justice or and called for changesin power structures,43 at least underlinedthe persistence of memoriesof collective suffering. and The responsethey elicitedfromphysicians pastors,however,increasfor ingly stressedthe individual's responsibility the healingprocess rather than the view that illness arose out of physicalblockagesrequiring social as well as medical solutions. Admittedly,more researchis needed on these commonperceptionsandinteractions withtheir processes,andon sufferers' environmentand professionals.I should like, however, to speculate once more on the effects of experiencesduringthe late sixteenth century and afterthe crisisof the firsthalf of the seventeenthcentury,such as the Thirty Years'War,on understandings the body and emotions. of Considerthe followingexample.In February1651,while inspectingthe local lepersin a villagenear Calwin Wurttemberg, townphysiciancame the upon the wife of one TheodorSchotzlin.This regionhad been almostcompletely destroyedin the ThirtyYearsWar,afterthe 1634Battle of Nordlingen. The womanhad very red eyes. She was not a leper.Her eyes conveyed a story of their own, which she told the doctor. Thirteenyears previously soldiershad marchedinto the villagewhen she was in childbed.She hadlost her propertyand seen 'before her very eyes' how her husbandwas manhandledand taken away.For days she had not knownwhetherhe was dead or alive, 'duringwhich time she had wept day and night, thus ruiningher eyes'. The town physicianacceptedher psychosomatic interpretation unquestioningly.Probably, however,he did not spend muchtime askingquestions abouther anxiety,andhe lent the interpretation medicalandphysiological a basis. An additionalfactorin her decline,he commented,was that she had not been properly'purged'duringthis period and had had to eat 'improperly' (that is, poorly).44Grief led to incessant weeping. For the doctor, however,it was a physicalflow that had been overstimulated. could try He to stabilizethe woman's'nature'by givinghersolidfood, in orderto prevent

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reddened eyes. This interpretation was pragmatic, strengthened the physician'sscope of action and focused the medical treatmenton physical processesalone. For the woman,in contrast,her eyes embodiedthe suffering caused by the horrorsthat had been committedbefore her. Comfort could have helped her too. In the early modern view, women in childbed were always more vulnerablethan other people to terror and anxiety.45 After the soldiers invaded it was difficultto find comfort,since everyone In needed it and hardshipwas widespread. this situation,her red eyes were like the stigmataof overflowing worry,whichhadto go withoutcomfortand support in the village or from the parish (pastors often disappearedin wartime). Wherepastorsandprayer-books were available,the hope of comfortand in and healingwas now pursuedindividually 'devotionally' this land devastated by war. In the late seventeenth century the Wurttembergcourt physicianRosinusLentiliusreceiveda letterfroma pastor.It told of a somewhat melancholywomanin his parishwho had undergonemuchsuffering. For a few days she would fret over her troubles,then she would become so angry at some 'unpleasant circumstance'that she immediately felt a pressureandtightnessin her chest.Thisincreasedto suchan extent thatshe had one or two anxiety attacks daily, broke into a cold sweat, and was plaguedby the feeling that somethingwas risingin her throatthat she could touch with her finger.No prayers,readingsor comfortingwordscould hold backher darkthoughts.Her limbswere heavy,she had no appetiteandwas losingweight.Finally,a vein in her handhadbeen opened,but this had only worsened her condition.46 The balance of emotions was supposed to be restored here by prayer and by re-establishinga flow of pure blood and appetite.'Devotion' was supposedto help one to accept one's destinyin a god-fearingmanner.For that reason,neitherphysiciannor pastorwas concernedwith precise social causes. A life story appended to Lentilius'sown funeral sermon endorses the importance that physicians themselves now ascribed to individual and devotional practices.It relates that 'accordingto his own inscriptionand accounts',the physicianhad read the Old Testamentseventeen times, the New Testament thirty-one times, Johann Arndt's 'True Christianity' twenty-ninetimes, the same author's'Little Gardenof Paradise'over one hundred times, Kubach'slarge prayer-booktwenty-ninetimes, and had 'read, prayed and sung' his way through the thick Riga-Livlandhymnal eight times, especiallyafter he was widowed (since those who were alone must arm themselvesparticularly well againsttemptation).47 Lutheran In and Pietist practice,the faithfulused prayerand singingto relate to God theireverydaytroublesandfears,in the hope of 'edifyingencouragement'48 and 'Christian mercy'.The voice, and the telling, whichwas characterized by repetitionand reflection,became part of a flow of feeling aimed at reconciliationwith the world - one, however,that accepted social conditions and theirpower and genderhierarchies. This tellingwas contrasted,on the

TheEarlyModernBody and the Emotions

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one hand, with obduratesilence, which correspondedto the frozen body, and on the other with quarrelsome, poisonoustalk - particularly women by and, once more, the figureof the witch- that hardenedthe body. HISTORIESOF THE BODY AND SELF In conclusion,we may say both that in the mentalityof earlymodernelites was profoundlyexperiand non-elites,male and female alike, subjectivity enced as interrelatedwith the physical,and that societal changesor structures influencedthe ways in which the body was perceived,althoughnot necessarily primarilythroughscientificdiscourses.Equallyimportantwere symbolic practicesrelated to religious and relationalconcepts of human exchange, which were often associatedwith materialexchange practices, views of communality morality. and were organizingcategories of Dryness and hardening (Verstocktheit) experiencenot just in early modernEurope,but also in other culturesthat were (and are) movingbetween open and more restrictedmodels of comIn munity and production.49 societies in which (before the age of modern anatomy) the humours were more importantthan isolated organs, and broad interpersonalexchangewas more highly valued than the individual accumulationof resources,there was a tendencyto worryabout the stagnation or misdirection bodily fluids.50 of This is also evident in present-daysocieties.The medicalanthropologist Charles Taylor, for example, places somatic experiences and diagnostic practicesin Rwandain the 1980sin a context of relationaland bodily perto ceptions that in some aspectscorrespondsurprisingly the early modern evidence.As liquidgifts,beer, milk andhoney had symbolizedthe old ideal of open, expansive relationships. The denial of hospitality had often broughtwith it the fear of sorceryand its dryingup of bodily fluids.In the new monetaryeconomy, however,notions of illness and healingpractices in graduallybecame individualized. Particularly times of scarceresources, this created insecurityin social relationships.If, for example, beer was brewedfor sale ratherthan gift exchange,it could no longer be consumed by the family,neighboursand friends.Some healerswho treatedhardening and blockageno longer asked who mighthave causedthese ailmentsfrom outside,and thus no longerenquiredinto a networkof social relationships. Instead,they viewed the subjectas the centre and originof his or her own blockage.Therapythusno longeraimedat breakingthe spell of sorcery,but ratherat uncoveringthe patient'suneasy feelings towardsothers and promotingthe internalflow of blood and sweat.The understanding flow and of accumulation thus re-coded,so that build-upsno longerstood for selfwas ishness and negativeself-containment.51 In early modern European culture, similarly,stagnatingemotions or untouchableheartswere addressedin variouscontextsin relationto social experiencesand exchangepractices. the sametime, therewas an attempt At

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of to limitthe understanding diseaseand healingas socialprocesses.WhatI hope to have shown,in short,is that 'all the fuss aboutthe body'52 mightbe worthwhilefor historiansbecause bodily experienceitself is rooted less in timeless physiologicalprocesses than in the complex historicityof communitiesthat they help to reveal.Thus,as we have seen, notionsof material and emotionalexchangebecame intertwinedwith perceptionsof the body andin turninfluenced some extentthe waysin whichbodiesbehaved.This to type of enquiryposes importantquestionsabout the natureof subjectivity in thisperiod,andaboutthe waysin whichbodilymateriality manifests itself.

NOTESAND REFERENCES in Thisis a revisedversionof an articlewhichfirstappeared Historische Anthropologie 2000. 2, I For theirsuggestionsandcriticisms wouldlike to thankVic Gatrell,ErdmuteAlber, Rainer ValentinGroebner,Daniela Hacke, Marion Beck, MartinDinges, Robert von Friedeburg, Kant, Martin Kusch, Rudolf zur Lippe, Hans Medick, Lyndal Roper, Norbert Schindler, MichaelStolbergand Beate Wagner-Hasel. 1 RichardE. Jones and B. ClarkeWeber(eds), Lettersof OgierGhislainde Busbecqto Maximilan London,1961,p. 17. the Holy RomanEmperor II, 2 Some key workshere are BarbaraDuden, The WomanBeneaththe Skin:a Doctor's Patients Eighteenth-Century in Germany, transl. ThomasDunlap,Cambridge MA, 1991;Nancy Medicine: Introduction Knowledge an to and Sirasi,Medievaland EarlyModernRenaissance Practice, Chicago,1990;RobertJutte,Arzte,HeilerundPatienten. Medizinischer Alltagin der fruhenNeuzeit,Munich,1991;MaryLindemann, Healthand Healingin Eighteenth-Century and Germany, Cambridge MA, 1996,esp. chap.4, and her Health,Medicine Healingin Early 1999. ModernEurope,Cambridge, 3 Quotedin MichelFoucault,TheBirthof the Clinic: Archaeology MedicalPercepan of tion,London,1973,p. 14. 4 Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart (henceforth HstASt),J 67, Bu. 30, 29 May 1689. 5 The old Germanwordfor pleurisywasSeitenstechen, literallya painin the side.Johann Storchdescribes characteristics pleuritical the of feveras follows:'It sometimesovercomesthe patient quite unexpectedlywith a markedchill, duringwhich a sharp pain is immediately noticed in the ribs,whichcontinueseven after the chill has gone. The chill is followedby a in burningheat, coughing,difficulty breathingand sometimesnauseaand vomiting.... The sicknessbefallsyoungpeople of 16 to about30 years,but occasionally olderones as well who sufferedfrom nosebleedsin theiryouth,but no longerdo so . . .' Theoretisch- practische und von Abhandlung ... Krankheiten, welcheErwachsenen Personen,vornehmlich aberSoldaten unterworfen seynpflegen,Eisenach,1759,pp. 230-1. zu 6 Juitte, Lindemann, Health,Medicineand Healing;David Arzte, Heiler und Patienten; 1998. Gentilcore,Healersand Healingin EarlyModemItaly,Manchester, 7 MikhailBakhtin,Rabelaisand his World, BloomingtonIN, 1984. 8 Barbara Duden,'Kapitel derSaftelehre', Die ZeitschriftftirKultur4, p. 46. aus DU. 1998, 9 Staatsbibliothek Berlin,Ms. Germ.Fol.424,PeterMuller,6 August1582,fol. 309v-lOr. 10 Ruth Padel,In and Outof the Mind:GreekImagesof the Tragic Self, Princeton,1992, chap.4. 11 The editionof the Schatder Gesontheyt used was publishedin Amsterdam 1643. I in 12 BarbaraDuden, 'Anmerkung Kulturgeschichte Herzens',in FaridehAkashezur des Bohme (ed.), VonderAuffalligkeit Leibes,Frankfurt Main1995,pp. 130-45. des am 13 MichaelMcDonald,MysticalBedlam:Madness,Anxietyand Healingin SeventeenthCentury England,Cambridge, 1981,p. 82. 14 See Heinz ScheibleandDieter Wuttke(eds), Willibald Pirckheimers vol. Briefwechsel, 3, Munich1989,no. 571, 443.

The Early Modern Body and the Emotions

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15 See in particular BarbaraDuden'sdiscussionof the significance angerand frightin of

The Woman Beneath the Skin, pp. 140-78.

16 Even Descartesby no meansbelievedthat men shouldrepresstheirfeelingswherever possible.Writing a military to friendwho hadjustlost his brother,Descartesnotes thathe was not one of those who believed that tears and mourning were for women only, and that men must alwaysforce themselvesto remaincalmin orderto appearbrave.A moderationof the emotionswas,however,decisive.It was dishonourable give oneselfwhollyoverto griefover to the deathof a brother,since this couldnot be compared other,greaterexperiencesof loss. to In addition,strong emotions worked together with one's inner nature so that the somatic consequencesalso did not stand in proportionto the actual cause of suffering.See the
important study by Susan James, Passion and Action: the Emotions in Seventeenth-Century

Philosophy,Cambridge, a 1997,pp. 262-3, in whichshe undertakes fundamental of rereading supposedly dualistictraditions thought. of 17 FrancisBacon, TheEssays,ed. JeremyPitcher,Harmondsworth, 1985,pp. 138-46,139, 141. See also David Wootton, 'FriendshipPortrayed: New Account of Utopia', History a
Workshop Journal 45, spring 1998.

18 Heide Wunder, "'justicia,Teutonice fromkeyt":Theologische Rechtfertigung und burgerliche Rechtschaffenheit. Ein Beitrag zur Sozialgeschichte eines theologischen Konzepts',in Bernd Moeller and StephanE. Buckwalter(eds), Die FruheReformation in Deutschland Umbruch, als Gutersloh,1998,p. 315. For a thoughtfuldiscussionof the early modern'self' see also David Wootton,'UnhappyVoltaire,or, "I ShallNever Get Over it as
Long as I Live"', History Workshop Journal 50, autumn 2000.

19 Bacon,Essays,p. 156.Foran illuminating studyof thisculturesee Lorraine Dastonand

Katherine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750, New York, 1998. On the gentlemanly culture of virtuosi see William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modem Culture, Princeton, 1994, chap. 9. See also Katharine

Hodgkin,'ThomasWhythorne the Problemsof Mastery', and HistoryWorkshop Journal29, spring1990.

20 William H. Sherman, John Dee: the Politics of Reading and Writing in the English

Renaissance, AmherstMA, 1995,chap.2. 21 Cf. the famousAnatomyof Melancholy RichardBurton,whichappearedin 1621. by

22 David Sabean, Power in the Blood: Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early

ModernGermany, Cambridge, 1984,chap.1. 23 MichaelStolberg,'Der gesundeunddersaubereKorper', Richard Dulmen(ed.), in van

Erfindung des Menscien. Schopfungstraume und Korperbilder 1500-2000, Vienna, 1998, p. 306.

24 This aspecthas so far been best exploredfor England,see AndrewWear,Healthand

Healing in Early Modern England: Studies in Social and Intellectual History, Aldershot, 1998,

pp. 145-69. 25 Staatsbibliothek Berlin,Ms. Germ.Fol. 106, 174r,no date. 26 As note 25, Fol. 175r. 27 As note 25, Fol. 174v. 28 On these notions see, in particular, LyndalRoper, Oedipusand the Devil: Witchcraft,
Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern Europe, London, 1994, chap. 9; and Diane Purkiss, The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-CenturyRepresentations, London, 1996, chaps

4 and 5.
29 Ulinka Rublack, The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany, Oxford, 1999, chap.

3. 30 HstASt,A 209, Bu. 853, 14 May 1615,magistrates report(Vogtbericht). 31 HstASt,A 209, Bu. 848, 13 December1628. 32 HstASt,A 209,Bu. 463a,21 June1628.Catharina, of MichelRocklinof Meltzheim wife in the districtof Boblingen. 33 Stadtarchiv Rothenburgob der Tauber,A 898, 505r. I thank Alison Rowlandsfor drawing attentionto this document. my
34 Elisabeth Fischer-Homberger, Hunger-Herz-Schmerz-Geschlecht. Bruche und Fugen im Bild von Leib und Seele, Bern, 1997, p. 172. 35 Roger French, William Harvey's Natural Philosophy, Cambridge, 1994, esp. pp. 183-94.

36 On these notionssee JohnBossy,Peacein thePost-Reformation, Cambridge, 1999. 37 See Wunder, Teutonicefromkeyt"', 323. "'justicia, p. 38 FranqoisRabelais, Gargantua Pantagruel, and transl.J. M. Cohen, Harmondsworth, 1955,pp. 295-301,301.

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39 Rabelais,pp. 302-3. 40 Natalie Zemon Davis, The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France,Oxford,2000,pp. 203-8; see also Valentin Groebner, Gefahrliche Geschenke. Ritual, Politik und Sprache der Eidgenossenschaft spdtenMittelalter am Beginnder Neuzeit,Konstanz,2000.English im und translation forthcoming, Philadelphia, 2002. 41 Davis, TheGift,p. 208. in 42 See also the relevantliterature the historyof medicine,for exampleRoy Porter,'The Patient'sView:Doing MedicalHistoryfromBelow', Theory Society14, 1985,pp. 175-98. and and 43 On this see Ulinka Rublack,'Pregnancy, Childbirth the Female Body', Past and Present110, 1996,pp. 84-110. 44 HstASt,A 282, Bu. 2, 15 February 1651,ConradCellarius. and 45 Rublack,'Pregnancy, Childbirth the FemaleBody'. 46 RosiniLentilii,Miscellanea Medico-Practica Tripartita, Ulm, 1698,pp. 236-7. 1733. 47 HstASt,J 67, Bu. 66, 12 February 48 Hans Medick, Webenund Uberlebenin Laichingen1650-1900.Lokalgeschichte als allgemeine Geschichte, Gottingen,1996,chap.6. 49 In seventeenth-century Japan,when productionprocesseswere developingrapidly, Economicgrowthwas achievedaboveall by fearsof knotsandhardening grewjust as rapidly. a more intense exploitationof labour.Notions of illnessrevolvedaroundthe 'sluggish flow', The recommended the developmentof lumps and knots and accumulations. remedywhen was the patientscomplainedof such 'hardening' not moderationand minimizing outflowof the (life) forces, but ratherpermanentactivity.While recognizing dangerthat people might the overtaxthemselvesby constantworkandphysicalmovement,medicalauthorsconsidered perils of stagnationthroughidlenessto be far more serious.'The pathologyof lethargyand stagnationwas thus permeated with social meaning', summarizesthe medical historian Kuriyama. 'Kori,heki, shaku... expressedat once an ailmentof the body and of time.'See ShigehisaKuriyama,"'The Flow of Life":Moderne Krankheitenund alte Konzepte des Lebendigenin der Medizinder Antike, Japansund Chinas',in PhilippSarasinand Jacob des Tanner(eds), Physiologieundindustrielle Studien Verwissenschaftlichung Gesellschaft. zur am im Frankfurt Main,1998,pp. 4-75, p. 68. Korpers 19. und20. Jahrhundert, of 50 For continuitiesin the problematization stagnationin eighteenthand nineteenthcenturyBritishsociety and its economicand social contextssee David Trotter,Circulation: Defoe, Dickens,and the Economiesof theNovel, London,1988. 51 CharlesTaylor,Milk,Honey and Moneyin Rwandan Healing,Washington DC, 1992, see esp. pp. 192-96. On the questionof culturalcorrespondences also ArthurKleinmanand Byron Good (eds), Culture and Depression: Studiesin the Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry Affectand Disorder,Berkeley,1985;MichaelStolberg,'TheMonthlyMalady: of a MedicalHistory44, 2000,pp. 301-22. Historyof Premenstrual Suffering', 52 See Caroline Bynum,'Whyall the Fussaboutthe Body?A Medievalist's View',Critical Inquiry22, 1995,pp. 1-33.