The emotional evidence of early modern English plague wills

Abstract

Abstract For seventeenth-century English Protestants will-making was a legal, religious and emotional practice, and one that continued in plague time. This article charts the resilience and accessibility of will-making in plague epidemics in Louth, Lincolnshire (1630/1–1631/2) and Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire (1637–8) and analyses both qualitative and quantitative emotional evidence from plague wills to illustrate the historical insights that can be gained into ordinary experiences of plague, the family, friendship, charity and death. By identifying patterns in emotional gestures across the Louth and Hull plague wills, this study shows how early modern emotions could be poignantly conveyed through actions and symbols, revealing in both case studies the high communal value of love and godly fear, of places, names and objects, of caritas and memory.