Bland gigor och flöjter - medeltida musiktraditioner och musikinstrument från fyra platser

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to investigate if it's possible to make out cultural differences within the medieval music tradition. Four different places are used in order to study finds of musical instruments: Eketorp Castle, Lund, Alvastra Monastery and Örja. The chosen places represent four different contexts: castle, city, monastery and rural area. Both archaeological finds and historical sources are used in order to answer the following question: is it possible to distinguish cultural differences in medieval music by studying the archaeological finds of musical instruments with a geographical, contextual and cultural perspective? There seems to be no geographical differences in the musical instrument types. However, both contextual and cultural variations have been identified. Eketorp's instruments fits into the representative function in a medieval castle (ceremonies and festivities). The finds in Lund can possibly be linked to the mercantile area and minstrels. Many of the finds in Alvastra were found in the courts, which is also the case in Eketorp. This may be an indicator of a tradition of playing in public areas. Furthermore, the finds in Alvastra Monastery give rise to a conflict between ideal and reality since there is an idea about monastic culture that does not coincide with the archaeological finds. One of the flutes in Örja was found in a smokehouse. It is possible that the music tradition in the rural area was rather tied to labour and pastime compared to the tradition in cities and castles, which seems to be tied to entertainment and making money. The finds from these four places differ, both in concentration and instrument type. There are two main issues that complicate this type of research. Within archaeology, the reports and categorizing of finds are too general. In research within musicology, archaeology needs to be more integrated in order to get a result that is as realistic as possible.