“Good Music and Bad Music in Late Antiquity”

Christians were debating the aesthetics and morality of music more than a millennium and a half before the Satanic panic. But their debates weren’t solely or even mostly about the putatively demonic properties of music. They were also anchored in the conviction that music had serious psychological and behavioral ramifications, and this talk explores how music theorists, monks, and other moralists drew the line between good and bad music accordingly.