[HN Gopher] The Noisy Middle Ages
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       The Noisy Middle Ages
        
       Author : tzs
       Score  : 15 points
       Date   : 2023-08-19 20:12 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.medievalists.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.medievalists.net)
        
       | version_five wrote:
       | It feels a bit off to me. I'm sure all these sounds exist, but
       | this makes it seem like the norm is the peak of a workday in an
       | industrial area or market, which would be noisy now too.
       | 
       | Country farms, even with animals, and horses pulling carts and
       | whatnot are nothing like the 10,000s of cars a day going by in
       | the background of a modern city, nonstop gas powered road
       | construction and yard maintenance, etc. I'm sure there were loud
       | times but the article doesn't convince me, I think it would have
       | been way more peaceful, especially on a farm.
        
       | pbj1968 wrote:
       | One thing I've pondered occasionally is what we would notice that
       | we hadn't thought about if we warped back a few centuries. One
       | that's always stood out to me is the sheer number of birds. What
       | exists today is a fraction of their population before
       | industrialization. And one mockingbird or crow means you can have
       | a bad time in your back yard now... imagine 20 of them.
        
         | SoftTalker wrote:
         | Maybe in urban areas. I see huge flocks of crows and other
         | birds all the time.
        
           | ghaff wrote:
           | I'll see flocks of hundreds of grackles and smaller numbers
           | of other birds on a regular basis.
        
       | Cthulhu_ wrote:
       | I don't understand the thing about church bells, since that's
       | still a thing. It's not obnoxious in modern life IMO. This
       | article seems to try to make a point but... I don't see it. Where
       | there's people there's noises, that's universal.
        
       | NeoTar wrote:
       | Obviously this is not the intent of the article, but it would be
       | interesting to compare actual decibel levels of the mediaeval
       | world and today. I strongly suspect that despite all of the
       | sources of noise noted, the world would on average have been much
       | quieter.
        
         | Cthulhu_ wrote:
         | I mean the population and therefore population density was a
         | fraction of what it is today, so of course it would be quieter.
        
           | dexwiz wrote:
           | That logic doesn't quite follow because even if overall
           | population is higher, high density living situations are not
           | new. I imagine the inside of a long house in the early
           | evening would have been filled with animal, child, and work
           | sounds. Definitely louder than my modern single family
           | kitchen.
        
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       (page generated 2023-08-19 23:00 UTC)