Other trades have their teachers, other arts have
their holy patrons, but only the typographies can assert to have a
patron demon. The following narration of Titivillus, this medieval singular demon is
based on exiguous written registers, interlaced with a quantity of free
presumptions.
Titivillus was created in jest by medieval monks to achieve
a serious purpose. The repetitive nature of monastic life was wear out. The
monks got used to stop to pay due attention to their work and then they were
maiming words or words were escaping from them, committing orthographic
errors.
It was necessary remembered to them that the lack of attention was a sin. The
first written mention about Titivillus by his name appeared about 1285 at the Tractatus
de Penitentia, by John of Wales. And this commentary was repeated at the
beginning of the following
century by Petrus de Palude, the patriarch of
Jerusalem, during a sermon: “Fragmina
psalmorum/Titivillus colligit horum”, who translated freely says that
Titivillus collected chunks of the psalms. Slipping silently without being seen,
he was inspecting one by one all the verbal barbarities which were mentioned
during the religious services.
But the monks deplored mistakes in the copy and in the
writing so much as those who were produced in reading and in liturgical chants,
although there isn’t any protocol of his interest in errors of the scribes
before the 15th.Century.
Also it presumes that maybe can to have followed to
the monks after the celebration of the mass, to be internalized of what was out
of rule at the penmen apartment.
His demoniacal condition took origin from the things
that Titivillus did when he listened or saw an error. The early description
from John of Wales contributed with another datum: “Quacque die mille/fvicibus sarcinat ille”, corroborated in many
manuscripts (one of them called Arundel 506, folio 46, which is in London
British Museum). This explains that Titivillus was forced to find out everyday
enough errors to fill 1000 times his
purse, then the
Devil was going down with
them to hell, where every sin was duly registered on a book with the name of
the guilty monk, to be read on Judgment Day.
We could think that the search of errors by Titivillus
was an easy task. At The Cloister Manuscript (“El manuscrito de los claustros”), like we know right now, produced
between 1325 and 1328, fifteen saints were accidentally omitted in the
calendar, and the names of more than thirty of them had orthography errors. Already
surely there was a full purse.
However, the presence of Titivillus had his effect.
The monks
quickly began to be more careful, and about 1460 was necessary to
maraud sneaking with the purse almost empty, rounding the site of honor of
chorus, looking for some “janglers, cum
jappers, nappers, galpers, quoque drawers, momlers,
forskippers, overenners,
sic overhippers…” (the janglers and the jappers speak quickly or kidding, the nappers remain
slept, the galpers yawn, the drawers don’t stop speaking and the momlers
mumble, the forskippers look at the things above, the overenners are like the
forskippers but faster, and the overhippers simply do all with more vigor.
Titivillus had remained short of sins and for 1475 he
had had to stoop to incur in the more ungraceful deviltries.
In other words, hidden himself furtively in the
churches where he was taking note about the names of women who were gossiping during
the mass. But the devil must have his condign punishment. In some moment during
the 15Th. Century he realized that a clever devil had to can woo to
the scribes in order that they duplicate, triplicate and even quadruplicate
their errors.
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