The Motion of Another’s Death: Grief and Mourning

This chapter provides a synopsis of recent literature on medieval and early modern emotions, particularly grief. It briefly surveys selective representations of mourning and grief in vernacular literature, popular print, painting, and music from across Europe between 1300 and 1700. It provides an account of grief as it was understood by theologians and physicians in that entire period. Finally, it identifies points of continuity and change both in popular views of emotional responses to death and in learned interpretations of it, with special interest in whether or how the religious controversy of the 16th century and Renaissance medicine affected mourning.