Noise before Decibel. Towards Semantics of Illegitimate Sound in the Late Middle Ages

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Noise is disturbing, distracting, and may even cause illnesses. Thus, we try to reduce noise by technical means today, and since the middle of the 19th century we have been able to measure it. In the Middle Ages people were not yet able to do so. Nevertheless, they suffered from the impact of noise as well. The present project entitled “Noise before Decibel” approaches reception and evaluation of sounds in the Late Middle Ages by analysing the wording of sensory impressions. Noise has been chosen as subject of investigation, because its denomination results from sense impressions as well as from the assessment that it is disturbing and thus illegitimate. This helps to narrow the flood of sounds down to a feasible degree. The studies aim to lay the foundations for historical semantics of illegitimate sounds. With regard to a society, which did not have sound recording at its disposal, the only way to decipher the historical acoustic environment and its perception is to survey the linguistic realisation of sounds. Thus, for the Middle Ages the sonic turn recently announced by historians seems to be above all a linguistic turn. Therefore, the achievements of modern sound studies and soundscape research which mostly concentrate on media cannot serve as an exact template for studies concerned with pre-modern times. They need a methodical extension. As a means to this end, anthropological considerations on hearing and sounds appear to be quite promising. They may even be extended into a veritable archaeology of ancient soundscapes. Thus, the frame for a hermeneutic approach to illegitimate sound would be set on three levels: (1) how is sense impression linguistically encoded in general, (2) how are distracting or disturbing sounds denominated, and (3) how are sound expressions used as metaphors in social and political contexts? Those three steps may allow insight into the contemporary perception and expression of sounds.There are two kinds of sources to be examined. On the one hand, in order to deal with individual perception and denomination of noise we will focus on texts with a predominant introspective and narrative dimension such as humanists’ letters and accounts of journeys. On the other hand, we chose monastic rules and city statutes. They display the collective view on sounds as well as the need to distinguish formally between a legitimate and an illegitimate kind. By means of close reading, acoustic phrases and their semantics will be analysed in context. One of the principal goals of the present study is the “Thesaurus sonorum molestorum”, an online dictionary of phrases referring to noise. Furthermore, results will be presented in two monographs according to the selection of sources. In addition, some methodological modules will be developed to facilitate further research on sounds in pre-modern times.