Acoustic simulation of Elizabeth I at Tilbury

摘要

The largest gatherings in human history prior to the advent of electronic amplification were all effectively limited by the loudness and intelligibility of the human voice. Various accounts throughout history depict single orators addressing crowds or armies of many tens of thousands, though some historians have cast doubts onto the veracity of these claims. Prior acoustic simulation has shown that reasonable intelligibility might be achieved for over 20,000 listeners for very loud orators and very quiet crowds with high density. Nearly all such accounts, however, depict a man addressing the crowd, with one notable exception: in 1588 Elizabeth I of England addressed a large army of between 5,000-23,000 troops gathered to repel the impending invasion by the Spanish Armada. The acoustic plausibility of this account is tested via STI simulations, focusing primarily on the density, noise, and environmental conditions at the time of the speech, as well as the frequency-dependent differences between female and male orators' vocal spectra and a sound radiation patterns.