Pilgrimages could be noisy affairs. Late medieval and early modern descriptions of such events in Spain nearly always emphasized the sounds of the crowd and of the penitents seeking miracles. They sighed and groaned; they cried; they prayed. And they sang; they played instruments. As one eyewitness account notes, the cacophony included "minstrels,┬átrumpets, bagpipes,┬ásymphonies, dances, rattles, flutes, trumpets, pipes, drums,┬áfifes, guitars and┬ácountless┬álittle┬ápitos. These are heard all at the same time…and make an extraordinary noise, a noise that seems as if it will shake the world apart." Commentators regularly linked the soundscape of pilgrimage to the emotional state of the pilgrims.┬áDuring Saturday Vespers at Nuestra Señora de la Cabeza, for instance, "the sonorous bells give a signal, instilling a particular joy in their hearts."┬áAt┬áNuestra Señora del Pilar, everything was conducive to affective devotion because "the shrine is always full of people singing." The connection between utterances and feelings in the Middle Ages—that people would sigh, or groan, or cry out in the throes of pious passion—is well known. But less attention has been paid to how listening affected the feelings, or to how participating in the clamor of the crowd created a sense of emotional solidarity.┬áDrawing on the "miracle books," or local histories, of the shrines of Montserrat, Peña de Francia, Pilar, and la Cabeza, I suggest that their authors both privileged the emotional resonances of pilgrimage and that they saw the passions of the pilgrims as facilitated by the auditory environment. An understanding of contemporary conceptions of the relationship between sound and affect can help us to explore broader questions in medieval and early modern cultural history.┬á┬á┬á
