Einleitung

Akustische Dimensionen des Mittelalters

Abstract

As any other historical time, the Middle Ages were not silent but full of sounds. In order to come to a fuller understanding of medieval societies and cultures, we need to look at the acoustic dimensions, traces of which can be found in all kinds of sources such as texts, objects and notations. Some of the issues that are prominent in a lot of papers in this issue – such as inter-sensuality, mediatization, the function of instruments, the aesthetics of sounds – are exemplified in this introduction by looking at medieval belliphony: by examining a quote from the ‘Colloquia Familiaria’ (Erasmus of Rotterdam) and the ‘Nibelungenlied’, the sounds of war and the sound used to narrate wars come into focus.

Keywords Sound; Belliphony; War; Colloquia Familiaria; Nibelungenlied