Sensitive Spirits: Changing Depictions of Demonic Emotions in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

Satan and demonic beings as represented in Latin theological treatises undergo a surprising transformation during the Middle Ages. Initially depicted as impersonal manifestations of a divinely ordained world with labile frontiers between the natural and the supernatural, they become passionate beings, usually portrayed as envious, angry, and vengeful, with a particular animus towards morally upstanding humans. Concomitant with the portrayal of demonic emotion is the development of the first-person conversion narrative. This essay documents the evolution in the portrayal of demonic emotions across two key genres of the Latinate Middle Ages: the first-person life narratives of monks that began to appear in the twelfth century, and collections of miracle narratives from the twelfth to the thirteenth centuries. This progressive “personalization” of supernatural beings offers insight into Milton’s portrayal of Satan in Paradise Lost.

From their earliest appearance in Western Christian religious mythology demons had been portrayed as tempters of humanity. And just as angels were etymologically “messengers,” that is, beings sent forth to do a higher bidding, so demon tempters were long described as though they were simply henchmen of the devil, impersonally following orders, doing what was permitted to them by God, but without their own emotional stake in their actions.¹ The idea of a demon possessing a full or accessible interior life, and particularly one of which it was self-reflexively aware and capable of expressing, did not exist. This began to change in the medieval era, with the transformation particularly taking place during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as demons increasingly came to inhabit texts of monastic life and conversion, and as they needed to be accommodated by the developing schemas of scholastic philosophy and theology within the created world. Over these two centuries, the depiction of demons changed markedly and rapidly. Demons became increasingly invested with personalized thoughts, and, more significantly, individual feelings.

This essay charts this swing towards the acknowledgement of demonic emotions across two key genres of the Latinate High Middle Ages. These are the first-person life narratives (proto-autobiographies) that began to appear in the long twelfth century, and collections of miracle tales from the early twelfth to the early thirteenth centuries. In taking as their subject matter the interior homo ‘inner man,’ who was also fast becoming the subject of monastic and spiritual contemplation (van ’t Spijker), these early autobiographies opened themselves to the expression and analysis of emotional states. Moreover, in each case, these life narratives strove to portray and render comprehensible a moment of monastic conversion and the difficulties of the cloistered life, in which events the devil, demons, and demonic temptation frequently played a significant role. Consequently, medieval autobiographies offer the possibility of authorial reflection upon and characterization of demonic emotions as well as human ones. Miracle tales were a genre that came to the forefront in the twelfth century, evidence of a renewed “delight in story-telling, a fascination with miracles and marvels, and an attentiveness to the phenomena of this world” (Banks and Binns lv).² They frequently presented their readers and listeners with a range of devils, demons, and evil spirits interacting with human beings. These tales were didactically designed to showcase the emotional reactions of people to demonic temptation (whether fear, remorse, or piety), and to elicit corresponding emotional and devotional responses in their readers and listeners. A corollary of this authorial focus seems to have been the extension of emotional states and reactions to these tempting beings as well as their victims.

By the middle of the thirteenth century, demonic emotions had become a question for scholastic philosophy to consider, and this article concludes with one instance of a scientific approach to the issue, William of Auvergne’s discussion of demons in his De universo. This provides a brief introduction to what will become over the course of the thirteenth century a vast and complex investigation by philosophers and theologians into the nature and possibility of disembodied beings such as angels, demons, and separated souls. While a comprehensive discussion of this ensuing metaphysical enquiry remains the matter for a different...