Copyright
Jan M. ZiolkowskiISBN
Language
- English
THEMA
- NHDJ
- JBGB
- DSB
- D
- NHD
BISAC
- HIS037010
- REL033000
- LIT011000
- SOC011000
- LCO008000
Keywords
- Titivillus
- Medieval demons and folklore
- Medieval manuscript culture
- History of scribal and typographical errors
- Medieval religious and literary traditions
Titivillus, the Devil of Error: An Anthology
Vol. 2: Exempla and Religious Culture, 2
Meet Titivillus: a minor devil with an extraordinary afterlife. Emerging in medieval Europe as a demon who collected the mangled words of careless chanters and recorded the gossip of inattentive churchgoers, he later evolved into the mischievous spirit blamed for scribal slips, printing errors and typographical blunders. Jan Ziolkowski’s Titivillus, the Devil of Error: An Anthology traces this remarkable transformation across more than eight centuries. Volume 2 continues the anthology’s exploration of Christian exempla and religious culture, following Titivillus through later medieval and early modern sermons, devotional works, preaching manuals and vernacular adaptations. Drawing on Latin, English, French, German and other European traditions, it reveals how tales of the sack demon and recording demon circulated, multiplied and changed as they passed between manuscripts, printed books, church art and oral performance.The volume brings together influential versions by Arnold of Liège, Robert Mannyng, Johannes Gobi, John Bromyard and many others. Across these texts, Titivillus records idle speech, gathers omitted words and exposes failures of worship, while serving as an instrument of moral instruction, social discipline and comic entertainment. Richly contextualised and extensively annotated, Volume 2 illuminates the transmission of exempla, the policing of speech and conduct, and the enduring entanglement of orality, literacy, gender, devotion and ecclesiastical authority.
Contributors
Jan M. Ziolkowski
(author)Jan Ziolkowski (A.B. Princeton University, Ph.D. University of Cambridge) has focused his research and teaching on the literature of the Middle Ages, especially in Latin. His special interests have included such areas as the classical tradition, the verbal arts of grammar and rhetoric, the appropriation of folktales, and the Latinization of Germanic epic. Additionally, he has developed broad interests in medieval revivalism down to the present. He has published many books on literature and culture, including interpretation, editions, translations, and reference works. He has published seven books with OBP, all devoted to The Juggler of Notre Dame. At Harvard he chaired Comparative Literature, the Committee on Medieval Studies, and (fleetingly) Classics, and founded the Medieval Studies Seminar, which still exists. He directed Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, a Harvard centre in Washington, D.C. Ziolkowski is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Academia Europaea, and Medieval Academy of America, and member of the American Philosophical Society, Austrian Academy of Sciences, and Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. His research been supported by the American Academy in Rome, NEH, American Council for Learned Societies, Guggenheim Foundation.