In the medieval period, language actually had its own devil – a demon called Tutivillus, the recording demon. Tutivillus epitomizes, in many ways, my arguments about the image of language, since, one could argue, he embodies a theory of language in his very essence. Contained in this impish character, who capers around the edges of manuscripts and cathedral choirs, and gambols through sermons and moral dramas, is an image of language that seems funny and playful but actually serves a serious, even threatening, purpose. In this chapter I will explore the sermons and pastoral handbooks which contain the demon of language, Tutivillus, and push my analysis and my methodology one step further: I will ask not only what idea of language underpins this little devil, but what is its purpose? What does this image of language do? Whom does it serve?

In the previous two chapters I have analyzed images of language in two specific cases – one a depiction of oral language, one a depiction of written language. I think it is worth reiterating that these are case studies, or standalone examples; because vernacular Middle English had no articulated theory of language, each individual author would have had an individual understanding of the ways in which language worked, some more original, some more in line with the conventional Latin understanding of language. Since we cannot come to any monologic theory of the way vernacular writers “thought language worked” – and since any such monolithic conclusions would necessarily be problematic and totalizing – the question of the purpose of the exercise may arise. “So what?” I can imagine people asking; “this is all very interesting, but so what? If we have to do this kind of analysis on every single author we encounter, why do it at all?” I would argue that it is, first of all, a worthwhile exercise in itself – that freeing our concept of Middle English writers’ understanding of language from the Latin auctores’ theories enables us to avoid some of the distortions that might arise were we to attempt to force Middle English literature into preconceived Latin frameworks or structures. However, the implications of this methodology go beyond such a quasi-ethical imperative, as important as that may be; so I want to turn to exploring those implications further in this chapter.