Titivillus, the Patron Demon of Scribes

I found this on the preces latinae website. The patron demon of scribes. A must read for the writer/blogger.

Titivillus is often referred to with the somewhat fanciful title of "The Patron Demon of Scribes". For much of human history the mechanical printing press did not exist, so any copies of a book or document had to be made by hand. Such copying was always done by professional scribes who were oftentimes monks in the Scriptorium of their monasteries (a tradition we can thank Cassiodorus for, not to mention for the preservation of texts and learning during the "Dark Ages"). Except for the shortest of documents, the work was generally laborious. The text had to be carefully drawn and faithful to the original document. Consider the labor required to copy an entire Bible or Missal, for example! I, for one, would not want to copy all of my Latin prayers by hand, much less an entire Bible. 

As with even the best of us, minds can wander from time to time and the monks were no exception. When this happened, errors would be introduced into the text. No one likes to take credit for his own mistakes, and true to human nature the monks invented Titivillus. He was invented somewhat in jest by them, both to take the blame for their mistakes and as a warning to the hapless monk whose mind strayed from the task. Titivillus is first mentioned by name in the Tractatus de Penitentia, written around 1285 by John of Wales, and then again in the 14th century by Petrus de Palude, the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Titivillus, so the story goes, would wander the earth every day collecting scribal errors until he had collected enough to fill his sack a thousand times. As he completed his collections for the day, the sack would be taken to the devil and each mistake was duly entered in a book against the name of the monk who had made the error. Upon Judgement Day, each of errors would be read out loud and would be held against the monk who had made it.

Keeping in mind what awaited for the careless scribe come Judgement Day, Titivillus helped the monastic community keep its standards up and its errors down. By 1460, the monks were doing such a good job that poor Titivillus was said to be reduced to slinking about churches and recording the names of women who gossiped during Mass. Hardly the sort of thing a once proud demon would want to stoop to, but times were tough.

However, that situation did not last. With the advent of the Renaissance, the rise of Universities and the merchant class, there was a sudden demand for manuscripts.... 

Read the rest there.