Titivillus Patron Demon of Scribes

While reading the excellent book "Medieval Calligraphy; its History and Technique" by Marc Drogin. I came across a few fascinating pages about the history of the patron demon of scribes, Titivillus.

From the book I learned that the life of a medieval scribe was far from a walk in the park. While there was a high demand for copies of books, especially religious texts, the need for precision made it an incredibly tiresome task. Imagine meticulously writing and copying for hours, only to discover misspellings, omissions, or illegible text – for a religious monk, it was nothing short of sin. By the 13th Century, medieval monks had playfully invented a demon named Titivillus to remind themselves against such inattentiveness. This mischievous demon would collect all of one’s writing errors in a sack and deliver them straight to the Devil for documentation. Yes, you read that right – every careless mistake recorded in detail so it could be recited aloud on Judgment Day.

Just imagine; all your spelling errors broadcast for all to hear as you faced divine judgment. Harsh.

By the 15th Century, Titivillus had evolved from a mere collector of errors into actively inspiring them. As the demand for copies of books rose ever higher, the quality lessoned considerably. No doubt the work of Titivillus coaxing writers into even more mistakes. As someone who makes their fair share of writing errors, I thought it would be really fun to create an illustration of the demon. After all, it's quite comforting to have someone else to blame for spelling mistakes, even if that person happens to be a demon with a penchant for condemning souls to hell over the smallest typo.

Overall, I think the illustration turned out well, and I think the demon looks just like my cat demanding breakfast every morning.