Abstract Since the sixteenth century, Protestant pastors and Catholic priests have kept records on their parishioners, documenting baptisms, marriages and burials. This article focuses on the emotional-historical implications of this form of record-keeping by examining baptismal and burial records from German-speaking territories during the early modern period. It argues that clergy could construct emotional communities through their parish registers. These communities could be communities of comfort, joy, sorrow, pity, hope or mourning. The emotional-historical dimensions of parish records are particularly evident in entries that deal with the relationship of the individual’s body and soul with the religious community. In these entries, clergy connected individuals with the religious community by narrating emotions related to birth deformities, illnesses and executions.
Eva Marie Lehner (Mon,) studied this question.