Religion and emotion

Abstract

In early 17th-century Finland, then part of Sweden and pronouncedly orthodox Lutheran, several people in the south-west regions were found to possess and use rosaries. This article discusses rosaries and rosary practices as material objects in the context of performing emotion and gender, on the basis of the ensuing court cases. The court record cases of rosary practice show that a Marian devotion channelled religious feelings in 17th-century Finland and that the experience or performance of these feelings had not changed as much as church teaching on the subject had. In reading of these emotions, however, one has to take into account the nature of the source material: court records were not meant to create a religious affect, but rather the opposite. Therefore they create emotions that support the authority of the legal system. The materiality of the rosaries themselves is abstracted in the court record text. Something of the materiality, and the emotions carried by it, can, however, be read from the narratives as recurring topics and repeated remarks; these methods of creating religious emotions used by the people were bodily and physically active techniques. The emotions thus created spread on a wider range than would be suggested by the interpretations of (medieval) Marian devotion, from displays of indifference and detachment to compassion, building the feeling of communality and belonging.

Keywords:

• emotion
• lived religion
• gender
• 17th century
• Finland

Acknowledgements

This work was conducted in the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence Re-thinking Finland (1400-2000) and supported by the Academy of Finland Academy Fellow project Catholic Reformation in Lutheran Finland [no: n:o 285358].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 McNamer, Affective Meditation, 6–7. There are landmark studies on affective devotion by e.g. Caroline Bynum, Jeffrey Hamburger, Sarah Beckwith, Thomas Bestul and Rachel Fulton, and Martha Nussbaum.

2 E.g. Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Feeling.

3 E.g. Rubin, Mother of God, 261, 364–5.

4 McNamer, Affective Meditation, 6–7.

5 C.f. Rosenwein, ‘Worrying about Emotions in History’, 821–45.

6 I am using secular lower court records as the main source materials, supplemented by some other material from folklore collections and Eric Erici Sorolainen’s sermon collection Postilla. The references to the relevant court records have been collected using local or church histories and the ‘Tuokko’ register of rural court records, local histories, and scholarly works on church or religious history or witchcraft or superstition in Finland. Tuokko is a 20th-century catalogue of the 17th-century rural district court records, which lists the cases by search words. It was originally written by hand on card files and is been housed in the National Archives of Finland, but has now been digitalized and is accessible at http://digi.narc.fi/digi/dosearch.ka?new=1&haku=tuomiokirjakortisto. I have used search words relating to church, religion, and superstition. In addition to the obvious search word ‘traces of Catholic religion’, cases like these should be expected to turn up, for example, under headings like ‘communion’ or ‘church punishment’, because the suspected parishioners would often be banned from communion. There are plenty of cases in which someone was noted as banned from communion, but the reasons are fornication and crimes of violence, and a couple of times ‘ignorance of the rudiments of religion’, which means that the person had failed his catechism hearing. Likewise, one would expect that entries on ‘visitation’ included cases like these, but it seems not. Nenonen, Noituus, taikuus, 405–10, includes an almost complete list of witchcraft and magic trials in Lower Satakunta, where some of the cases are also noted.

7 Ylikangas, Valta ja väkivalta, 50–77; Andersson, Tingets kvinnor och män, 102.

8 Cf. Toivo, ‘Discerning Voices’.

9 Ankarloo, Trolldomsprocessena I Sverige, 82–6; Nenonen, Noituus, taikuus, 256ff. The laws were rather vague on the definitions of heresy, blasphemy, and cursing, which stood for harmful witchcraft and various forms of superstitious behaviour. Therefore the various patents were observed to a varying degree. Cf. also Pihlajamäki, ‘Executor divinarum et suarum legum’, 189–98; Ylikangas, Miksi oikeus muuttuu, 153–4. Unfortunately the church court and visitation records from early 17th–century Lower Satakunta did not survive.

10 Nenonen, Noituus, taikuus, 45–7, 59–62, 256–64; Oja, Varken Gud, 166–79; Toivo, Witchcraft and Gender, 36ff.

11 Hiekkanen, ‘Helminauhoja’; Koivisto et al., Vantaan Mårtensbyn arkeologiset tutkimukset, 31–2.

12 See note 6. The references to these court records have been collected using local or church histories and the ‘Tuokko’ register of rural court records, local histories, and scholarly works on church, religious history, witchcraft, or superstition in Finland.

13 ett paar stene båndh som käringar i den tijdh hade läst opå. National Archives of Finland (NA), Ala-Satakunta I, KO a 3, 304v. Kokemäki, 17.-20. November 1634.

14 National Archives of Finland Ala-Satakunta I, KO a 2, 254v, Huittinen 30.-31. August 1624. ‘hon brukar Läsebandh och gammal Påwesk willfarellse. Hwilcket Rychte hennes man Hindrich Madzon bekiende för Rätten. Och förthenskuld haffwer honnom giffues Orsak at sättia henne ifrån Kyrckian till dhez hon sådant afståår’.

15 Oja, Varken Gud, 102–3.

16 NA. Ala-Satakunta I KO a 3, 275v. Ulvila 31. March 1634, ‘hon I Kyrkiotijden hade brukat Mariolatria och således warit ifrå Kyrckian’.

17 ‘med kärlingar’ NA. Ala-Satakunta I KO a 6, 148. Huittinen den 4.-5. June 1646.

18 NA. Ala-Satakunta I KO a 6, 192v. Huittinen 16.-18. November 1646.

19 Suvanto and Niemelä, Punkalaitumen historia I; Suvanto, Satakunnan historia III; Lehtinen, Suur-Ulvilan historia.

20 Heal, The Cult of Virgin Mary; Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Feeling, 159–83.

21 ‘lucevat nimettäin /sata ja wijsikymmentdä Engelin tervehdysta ja wijsitoistakymmentä (sic) Isä Meidän Rucousta — ja sawat palio aneita ia syndins antexi waica cuinga caucana sydän ia aiatos siitä on’; Ericus Erici Sorolainen, Postilla I (1621),7–8; Postilla II, 510.

22 Brilkman, Undersåten som förstod, 115ff.; Berntson, Mässan och armborstet, passim.

23 Sorolainen, Postilla I. Sunnuntai joulun jälkeen [sermon on the Sunday after Christmas], 207, 209–211 (175, 177–9). See also Toinen joulupäivän saarna [the second sermon on Christmas Day] Postilla I, 201 (169). The idea was not unique to Finnish church leaders, but Mary was an example of humility also to Luther and other Reformers as well as many Catholics. See. e.g. Rubin, Mother of God; Karant-Nunn, ‘Reformation Society’, 433–60.

24 Heal, ‘Sacred Image’; Hiekkanen, Suomen keskiaikaiset kivikirkot; Hiekkanen, ‘The Long Reformation’.

25 Räsänen, Ruumiillinen esine, 130ff.

26 Hiekkanen, Suomen keskiajan kivikirkot, 219–74. On the church of Huittinen, especially Hiekkanen, Suomen keskiajan kivikirkot, 220–3, on Kokemäki, 224–7, on Ulvila, 266–9; Hiekkanen, ‘The Long Reformation’.

27 Palmroth, Kertomus Hauhon seurakunnan vaiheista, 168; The Finnish Literature Society houses a collection of folk legends in the Finnish Literature Society’s Archives, Manuscript card files, Perinnelajikortistot: Legendat. See also Rausmaa and Rokala, Catalogues of Finnish Anecdotes; Timonen, ‘The Cult of the Virgin Mary’, 101–19. On sacred trees see e.g. Stark, Peasants, Pilgrims and Sacred Promises; Vilkuna, Suomalaiset vainajien karsikot ja ristipuut.

28 Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Feeling, 172; Heal, The Cult of Virgin Mary, 304.

29 Nuorteva, Suomalaisten ulkomainen opinkäynti, 208–30; Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia III, 119–22; Pirinen, Suomen kirkon historia I, 326–7, 339–41.

30 Scribner, ‘Incombustible Luther’, 38–68.

31 McNamer, Affective Meditation, 12.

32 käringar i den tijdh. National Archives of Finland (NA), Ala-Satakunta I KO a 3, 304v. Kokemäki, 17.-20. November 1634. The Vicar of Punkalaidun practised with (old) hags; med kärlingar. NA. Ala-Satakunta I KO a 6, 148. Huittinen den 4.-5. June 1646. The word ‘kärring’ was a diminutive word used to address ‘unimportant womenfolk’. It most often means ‘old woman’, usually denoting also mental simplicity and short-sightedness, credulity, and stubbornness, even when the person’s actual age is not very advanced. Svenska Academiens Ordbok.

33 Garstein, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in Scandinavia IV, 199–309; Heal, The Cult of Virgin Mary, 116–47.

34 Toivo, ‘Discerning Voices’. Examples in the rosary cases can be found from the longer court records of Ala-Satakunta I KO a 6, 148. Huittinen den 4.-5. June 1646 and Ala-Satakunta I KO a 6, 192v. Huittinen 16.-18. November 1646.

35 Toivo, ‘Discerning Voices’.

36 Cf. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities.

37 ‘Tio Gods buds, troon, Fadhren wår nio gånger hwardera på knään läsit’. District court records. Huittinen 16.–18. November 1646. Ala-Satakunta I KO a 6, 192v. NA.

38 Karant-Nunn, Reformation of Feeling, 174.

39 Van Gent, Magic, Body and the Self, 127ff.

40 McNamer, Affective Meditation, 12, 119–50.

41 National Archives of Finland (NA), Ala-Satakunta I KO a 3, 304v. Kokemäki, 17.-20. November 1634; Ala-Satakunta I KO a 6, 148. Huittinen den 4.-5. June 1646.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland Academy Fellow project Catholic Reformation in Lutheran Finland [no: n:o 285358].

Notes on contributors

Raisa Maria Toivo

Raisa Maria Toivo, PhD (title of Docent), is an Academy of Finland research fellow at the University of Tampere. Her research concerns lived religion, superstition, witchcraft, and violence in early modern Finland and Europe. Her publications include Witchcraft and Gender in Early Modern Society, Finland and the Wider European Experience (Ashgate, 2008) and Faith and Magic in Early Modern Finland (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).