Tutivillus and the "Kyrkchaterars": Strategies of Control in the Middle Ages

The demon Tutivillus is one of the more enigmatic creatures of medieval Christian folklore. He is pervasive yet elusive, appearing again and again in drama, sermons, sculpture and art, engaging and amusing in appearance yet deadly earnest in purpose.¹ Two main strands of the Tutivillus tales weave through medieval culture. In one version, Tutivillus, bearing a large sack on his back, is seen by a holy man. When the holy man asks him what he is carrying, the demon replies, "I bere inmy sacche sylablys & woordys, overskypped and synkopyd, & verse & psalmys þe whiche þese clerkys han stolyn in þe queere, & haue fayled in here seruyse."² Usually this tale is set in a church or choir, as in this example, and the neglectful worshippers are almost always monks or clerics.³ In one variation, the demon is quite pitiful, for he tells the Abbot that he must bring to his master a thousand sacks a day full of "faylynges, & and of neglygences in syllables and wordes, that ar done in youre order in redynge and in syngynge. & else I must be sore beten."⁴ Another version contains a "curse against perversely singing ones," those who cut short their psalms, invert broken words, mar songs and rush through their prayers.⁵

The second main strand of the Tutivillus story runs thus: a deacon or abbot laughs out loud in the middle of the church service. When his superior asks him why he laughed, he answers that he sawa demon busily writing down thewords of two women who were gossiping rather than listening to the sermon. The women talked somuch that the demon ran out of parchment, and when he attempted to stretch the parchment with his teeth, it ripped, and the demon hit his head on a pillar, which made the cleric laugh. Perhaps because of its dramatic qualities, this version appears more often in art and sculpture than the sack-bearing version.⁶ In most tales, the cleric proves his story by showing his superior the demon's blood on the stone.⁷ In John Mirk's version, the fiend is actually sitting on the women's shoulders;⁸ in another version, the demon tears up his parchment and abandons it in disgust when he sees the deacon laughing at him.⁹ Almost all the tales end with an admonishment not to "jangle" or "lough" or "lett the dyuyne seruyce" during mass.

Margaret Jennings has already written an extensive study of the various versions and recensions of the Tutivillus stories, so I do not want to examine the textual history or distribution of the story here. Instead, I propose to raise other questions, which Jennings, concerned primarily with establishing the variants and the transmission of the tale, does not address. For example, why are there two distinct versions of this story? How are they linked, other than by the simple coincidence of the demon's name? Why is the sack-carrying Tutivillus primarily associated withmumbling monks, while the writing Tutivillus is associated with jangling women?¹⁰ Most importantly, what power structures lie behind this tale? Why is Tutivillus such an attractive figure to writers of exempla and dramatists, and who benefits from the wide distribution of the tale? In other words, how does the figure of Tutivillus work within the discourses of sermon, religious drama, and pastoral care, and what counter-discourses is he deployed against?¹¹ By examining these workings of power and discourse within the Tutivillus stories, we can approach an understanding of the reasons for the differences between the two versions of the tale.

Beforewe analyze the differences between the versions, however, we need to consider what they have in common beyond the simple coincidence of the protagonist's (antagonist's?) name. First and foremost, the two versions of the Tutivillus tale share a purpose. The tales aim to control the audience, to encourage the listeners to respect the church and to refrain from sin. The first mechanism of control is through fear: the audience is afraid of the eternal damnation the speaker threatens if they fail...