「我らが北部の歓待の流儀」？——宗教改革期イギリスにおける感情と感情共同体——

抄録

This article explores emotions during England’s long Reformation by focusing on a lawsuit in the court of Star Chamber fought among Yorkshire gentry in 1600–2. Building on M. Scheer’s concept of ‘emotional practice’ (2012), this case study aims to demonstrate current agendas of historical research on emotions together with its potentials and limits. The lawsuit was filed by Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby, a zealous protestant and a newcomer to the region, following an unexpected and riotous visit by a hunting party. The group was led by the sons of powerful local magnates who were known to be Catholic sympathizers. The unwelcome visitors mocked Sir Thomas before his pious household by introducing cards, excessive drinking, and blasphemies into his house, as well as disturbing the public prayer of the household. The events recoded in court records and Lady Margaret Hoby’s spiritual diary reveal conflicts between two ‘emotional communities’: Hoby claimed his opponents’ misconducts as a part of ‘partial customs of those frozen parts,’ whereas the defendants called Hoby’s ‘cold welcome,’ ‘not answerable to our northern customs.’ The case also shows Sir Thomas’s sense of honour, the peculiarly Calvinist emotional reactions of the Hobys, and their emphasis on prayers as the ties of their own emotional community; all of which conditioned their ‘emotional practice.’ The nature of primary historical sources, however, defies historians’ attempts to ‘label’ the emotion they had at specific moments. This is mainly because their own emotional reactions to the events did not count much in the context of the legal or spiritual text writing and they remain silent on the subject. However, the history of emotions may have potentials for historians to capture various bodily, cultural, social, legal, and religious codes and practices as an organic whole, which shaped and reshaped the emotional practice.