"Varder lekare sårad..." : Musik, politik och ideologi i tidigmedeltidens Norden

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The aim of this paper is to illuminate and discuss the political and ideological aspects of Early Medieval Nordic music. Due to shortage of sources, this issue has been overlooked until now. Did Early Medieval Nordic music meet the requirements for political and ideological use? In what ways could music potentially be used politically and ideologically? Was music used as a political and ideological tool? This is examined by a contextual analysis combining music history and historical archaeology. The survey consists of a background account, focusing on the potential of music and some requests for political use, and three case studies, where musical reflections of societal tensions is investigated in folk music lyrics, Icelandic sagas and church art. It is concluded that Early Medieval music did meet the requirements for political use. Propaganda was already well-known and music was an effective medium, considering that it reached everybody in society, was diversified and could be influenced by several potentates. In the case studies similarities are found between the music and different kinds of domestic and foreign propaganda. Political songs appeared in the fifteenth century at the latest, the pagan music tradition is set off in the Icelandic sagas and the Church used images of music symbolically in order to spread and illustrate a Christian world view. The author suggests that music was deliberately used at least for ideol...