Before Emotion offers a cornucopia of insights into the emotional dimension of pre-modern life. Recognizing that the term “emotion” is recent, the collection focuses on the period's myriad uses of the Latin affectus and related terms which could signify, for example, love, desire, will, intention, disturbance, disposition, affection, and emotional experience, often with particular moral valences. Each contribution leads into larger, nuanced views of the emotions.

Thomas Dixon, whose work has challenged the anachronistic use of “emotion,” writes the preface. Jonathan Teubner on Augustine, Robert Miner on Aquinas, and Rita Copeland on Cicero's influence through 1200 provide insightful discussions of sources important for later thinkers. Michael Barbezat stresses the mystical side of Hugh of St. Victor. Antonina Harbus considers Anglo-Saxon uses. Mark Amsler discusses medieval grammar. Juanita Feros Ruys contrasts Heloise to Abelard. Naama Cohen-Hanegbi considers a singular, Arab-influenced Medieval medical discourse.

Addressing affective piety, Barbara Newman contrasts the focus of prophet Hildegard of Bingen on the moral significance of emotions with that of the nuns at Helfta, who described godly affections as binding them to God and each other. Paul Megna, considering Middle English devotional writings, discusses Julian of Norwich and Margery Kemp, among others. Constant Mews writes on leading Cistercians. Tomas Zahora, considering Bonaventure and other Franciscans, suggests that affective piety can serve social stratification.

Kirk Essary considers the Renaissance figures Lorenzo Valla, Erasmus, and Rudolph Agricola, as they embroidered upon affectus et al. in Cicero and Quintilian. Elena Carrera considers the influence of medieval thinkers, themselves reworking ancient thought, on Thomas Elyot, Juan Luis Vives, and others. R. S. White proposes a “taxonomy” of early modern English literary emotion terms.

For the Enlightenment, Margaret Watkins writes on Hume's highly favorable view of the emotions, Daniel Canaris and Francesco Borghesi write on Giambattista Vico's changing terminology, and Anik Waldow writes on Descartes’s complex situating of passions in the mind-body relationship. Michael Champion concludes by arguing that pre-Enlightenment thought offers a more interpersonal and value-oriented view of emotions than many current theorists. Together, these essays remind us to search out the many past meanings of such terms as “affection,” “passion,” “appetite,” and “perturbation” rather than conflating them with contemporary usages of these and other emotion-related terms.