The Tears of a Killer. Criminal Trials and Sentimentalism in the Austrian Netherlands

A style of feeling known as the 'cult of sensibility' swept through Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century, stressing the importance of both sympathy and public tears. In this article, I argue that this new style to some extent also affected common people's emotional practices in the Southern Netherlands. Primarily using trial records, three phases in the history of sensibility are roughly distinguished. Up to around 1770, few traces of the cult of sensibility could be found and trial records only reported women as occasionally weeping. This changed in the 1770s and early 1780s, when men were also said to have wept. Only in the 1780s and 1790s, however, when male tears were already disappearing again, explicit references to sympathy were found. In the conclusion, I reflect upon the possibilities of trial records to study the history of emotions.

Jaar van publicatie:2017

BOF-keylabel:ja

IOF-keylabel:ja

BOF-publication weight:0.5

CSS-citation score:1

Authors from:Higher Education

Toegankelijkheid:Open