§ 136. DEMONOLOGY AND tHE DARK ARTS. 881
while engaged at his devotions than at other times. One of the places where the evil spirits took particular delight in playing tricks was in the choir when the monastics were met for matins and other services. Here they would vex the devout by blowing out the lights, turning to a wrong leaf, or confusing the tune.1
On one occasion Herman of Marienstadt saw three who passed so near to him that he might easily have touched them, had he so desired. He noted that they did not touch the floor and that one of them had the face of a woman, veiled. Sometimes a troop appeared and threw one part of the choir into discord, and when the other part took up the chant, the demons hastened over to its side and threw it into the same confusion, so that the two wings of the choir shouted hoarsely and discordantly one to the other.2
On another occasion Herman, then become abbot, a monas tic whom Csesar calls a man of marked piety, saw the devil in the form of a Moor sitting on one of the windows of the church. He looked as if he had just emerged from hell-fire, but soon took his flight. When Herman was praying to be delivered from such visions, the devil seizing his last oppor tunity appeared to the abbot as a bright eye as big as a fist, and as if to say, "Look straight at me once more for this is the last time." Nevertheless, the abbot saw the devil again and this time at the sepulture of Countess Aleidis of Freusberg. While the lady's body was lying in its shroud, the devil appeared, peering into all corners as if he was looking for something he had lost.
It was a bad symptom of the monkish imagination that when the devil was seen in convents, it was often in the form of a woman and a naked woman at that. Sometimes monks got sick from seeing him and could neither eat, drink, nor sleep for days. Sometimes they lost their minds from the same cause and died insane. At times, however, vigilant nuns were able to box his ears.3 A demon entered the ear
lDial, V. 53, etc., Strange's ed., I. 336. * Dial, V. 5, Strange's ed., I. 287 sqq. *Dial, ITT. 11, V. 28, 45, Strange's ed., I. 123, 311, 330. 3*
882 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
of a woman when her husband said to her, " Go to the devil." Children were known to drink the devil in their milk as did one child of four who remained possessed for thirty years. The devil, as might have been expected, was fond of dice and, as in the case of a certain knight, Thieme, after playing with him all night carried him through the roof so that, ac cording to the testimony of the man's son, he was never seen again.1 Bernard, by his own statement, cast out demons, as did Norbert and most of the other mediaeval saints. Norbert's biographer reports that the devil struck some of the Premonstrants with his tail. At other times he imparted to would-be monks an unusual gift to preach and explain the Bible, and the Premonstrants were about to receive some of this class into their order when the trick was revealed. On one occasion, when Norbert was about to cast out a demon from a boy, the demon took the shape of a pea and sat upon the boy's tongue and then impudently set to work asserting that he would not evacuate his dwelling-place. " You are a liar," said the ecclesiastic, " and have been a liar from the beginning." That truth the devil could not gainsay and so he came out and disappeared but not without leaving ill odors behind and the child sick.3
The devil, however, to the discomfiture of the wicked often told the truth. Thus it happened in Norbert's experience at Maastricht, that when he was about to heal a man pos sessed and a great crowd was gathered, the demon started to tell on bystanders tales of their adultery and other sins, which had not been covered by confession. No wonder the crowd quickly broke up and took to its heels.3 The devil prayed the Lord's Prayer but with mistakes so that he was easily detected.4 Once his identity was discovered, it was no difficult thing to get rid of him. The sign of the cross, spitting, and saying the Ave Maria were sufficient to drive him away.5 Peter the Venerable gives many cases showing how the crucifix, the host, and holy water protected monks, insidiously attacked by " the children of malediction " and
1 Dial., V. 11, 26, 34. 2 Vita Norbt<> XIII. s Vita Norb., XIV.
* Dial, III. 6. & Dial, III. 6, 7, 13, 14, VII, 25, etc.