Lost in Translation? Multilingualism in Early Song in the Low Countries (1350-1550)

Multilingualism is a widely discussed societal phenomenon. The present project aims to contribute to a betterunderstanding of multilingualism from a specific historical perspective: medieval and early modern song(1350-1550) in the Low Countries. A multidisciplinary collaboration between musicologists,musicians, translation scholars, (literary) historians, and database specialists will focus on mapping outmultilingualism in the songs’ material sources, within the song repertory itself, and in the circulation of both.In the Integrated Database for Early Music (https://idemdatabase.org/), a new module will be built to processthese data and to make them accessible for use by researchers and performers. The critical historical study ofthe multilingualism that shapes and diversifies the early song repertory will, furthermore, result in thecreation of an authoritative, historically and critically informed body of song translations– a commodity thatis in worldwide demand by scholars, performers, early music festivals, and concert halls.