1 - Homage to the Devil: ritual, writing, seal

Summary

One of the most iconic moments of the legend of Theophilus is the scene of homage to the Devil. Marc Bloch counted the Ingeborg Psalter [Fig. 1] representation of it (fol. 35v, upper scene, Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 1695, hereafter Ingeborg) as “among the best representations of the act of homage which we possess” (Feudal 233). Contractual servitude to the Devil, enacted through ritual and authenticated through writing, clearly captured – perhaps terrified – the medieval imagination. This scene, with a man on his knees, paying homage to the Devil seems to be a good metaphor in general for the weakness of the flesh, the subordination of man to temptation, to a higher power, spiritual or temporal (Le Goff 369). The texts and manuscript images of the legend represent this scene reasonably faithfully but with a wide range of subtle differences. This chapter will examine the scene of homage to the Devil and its variations in the texts and images in order to show how this particular image of feudal relations could become a metaphor for the plight of man in a world brimming with secular temptations. The chapter will also consider how the ritual of homage and the more textually based contract that can go along with the ritual could become vehicles for individual self-presentation. The representation of homage per se is all the more interesting because in fact not that many images or texts portray the key gesture of the joined hands (immixtio manuum). It is perhaps surprising to note that it is not the gesture of kneeling with hands joined that constitutes the most lasting core of the legend. It is in fact the contract and the seal, which appear all the way back in Paul the Deacon's Latin translation, that fatally mark Theophilus's bond with the Devil. The ritual gestures of homage in the legend, like actual historical transactions, cannot therefore be separated from the written contract and the authenticating seal.

While the gesture of kneeling before another man with hands joined is the key sign of feudal homage, kneeling is not the only component of the ritual. Jacques Le Goff's 1977 article “Le rituel symbolique de la vassalité” documented and emphasized the highly ritualistic aspect of medieval homage. Le Goff notes that the combination of rites and symbolic gestures constitutes a system, one that does not work if one of the parts is missing (365).