It will be seen from this sketch that the book is really a collection of stories grouped round certain subjects which they are intended to illustrate and connected by a slender thread of dialogue. Such collections of exempla are nearly always valuable, but the work of Caesarius is particularly so, because he does not confine himself to “stock” stories, but relates many with details of time and place, drawn from his own experience and from that of his friends. The book is full of local colour and gives an exceedingly vivid picture of lay and ecclesiastical life in medieval Germany. For our purpose it is interesting because it contains many exempla concerning nuns, and any reader attracted by this particular class of didactic literature may be glad to add some more stories to those quoted in the text.
Caesarius has much to say of the devil, a very visible and audible and tangible devil and one who can be smelt with the nose. His tales of devil-haunted nuns display a side of convent life about which English records are in the main silent; but that they represent with fair accuracy the sufferings of some half-hysterical, half-mystical women cannot be doubted by anyone familiar with the lives of medieval saints and mystics, such as Mary of Oignies, Christina of Stommeln and Lydwine of Schiedam. He tells in his section on “Confession” of a nun Alice or Aleidis, who had led an ill life in the world, but had repented her when her lover, a priest, hanged himself, and had taken the veil at Langwaden in the diocese of Cologne:
Once when she was standing in the dorter and looking out of the window, she beheld a young man, nay rather a devil in the form of a young man, standing hard by a well, which was near the wall of the dorter; who in her sight set one foot upon the wooden frame which surrounded the well, and as it were flying with the other, conveyed himself to her in the window, and tried to seize her head with his extended hand; but she fell back stricken with terror and almost in a faint, and cried out and hearing her call, her sisters ran to her and placed her upon her bed. And when they had gone away again and she had recovered her breath and lay alone, the demon was once more with her, and began to tempt her with words of love, but she denied him, understanding him to be an evil spirit. Then he answered “Good Aleidis, do not say so, but consent to me, and I will cause you to have a husband, honest, worthy, noble and rich. Why do you torture yourself with hunger in this poor place, killing yourself before your time by vigils and many other discomforts? Return to the world and use those delights which God created for man; you shall want for nothing under my guidance.” Then said she, “I grieve that I followed thee for so long; begone for I will not yield to thee.”
Then the foul fiend blew with his nostrils and spattered her with a foul black pitch and vanished. Neither the sign of the cross, nor sprinkling with holy water, nor censing with incense prevailed against this particular demon; he would retreat for a time and return again as soon as Aleidis ceased to employ these weapons against him. She was in despair, when one day
One of the sisters, of maturer years and wisdom than the others, persuaded her when the demon tried to approach her to hurl the angelic salutation[1798] in a loud voice in his face; and when she had done so the devil, as though struck by a dart or driven by a whirlwind, fled away and from that hour never dared to approach her.
Another time the same Aleidis went to confession, hoping thus to rid herself forever of her tormentor:
And behold as she was hastening along the road, the devil stood in her path and said: “Aleidis, whither away so fast?” And she replied: “I go to confound myself and thee.” Then said the devil: “Nay, Aleidis, do not so! Turn again!” And she replied: “Oft hast thou put me to confusion, now will I confound thee. I will not turn back.” And when he could turn her back neither by blandishments nor by threats, he followed her to the place of confession flying in the air above her in the form of a kite; and as soon as she bent her knee before the Prior and opened her lips in confession, he vanished, crying and howling and was never seen or heard by her from that hour. Behold here ye have a manifest example of what virtue lieth in a pure confession. These things were told to me by the lord Hermann, Abbot of Marienstatt[1799].
In his section “De Daemonibus” Caesarius has a yet more startling collection of stories about devils. The trials of sister Euphemia are described as having been related to him by the nun herself, at the instance of her abbess:
When the aforesaid nun was a little maid in her father’s house, the devil ofttimes appeared to her visibly in divers shapes, and in divers ways affrighted and saddened her tender age. And since she feared to be driven mad she expressed her wish to be converted[1800] into our order. One night the devil appeared to her in the form of a man and tried to dissuade her, saying: “Euphemia, do not be converted, but take a young and handsome husband and with him thou shalt taste the joys of the world. Thou shalt not want for rich garments and delicate meats. But if thou enter the order, thou wilt be forever poor and ragged, thou wilt suffer cold and thirst, nor will it ever be well with thee henceforth in this world.” To which she replied: “How would it be with me if I should die amidst those delights, which thou dost promise me?” To these words the devil made no reply, but seizing the maid and carrying her to the window of the chamber wherein she was lying, he sought to throw her out. And when she said the angelic salutation the enemy let her go, saying, “If thou goest to the cloister, I will ever oppose thee. For hadst thou not in that hour called upon that woman I should have slain thee.” And having spoken thus, squeezing her tightly, he sprang out of the window in the shape of a great dog and was seen no more. Thus was the virgin delivered by invoking the Virgin Mother of God. How harassing the devil is to those who have been converted and in how many and divers ways he vexes and hinders them, the following account shall show. When the aforesaid maiden had been made a nun, one night as she lay in her bed and was wakeful, she saw around her many demons in the form of men. And one of them of an aspect most foul was standing at her head, two at her feet and the fourth opposite her. And he cried in a loud voice to the others: “Why are you standing still? Take her wholly up as she lies and come.” And they replied: “We cannot. She has called upon that woman.”... Now the same demon, after she had said the angelic salutation, seized the maiden by her right arm, and squeezed her so tightly as he dragged at it, that his grasp was followed by a swelling and the swelling by a bruise. Now when she had her left hand free, she in her great simplicity dared not make the sign of the cross therewith, deeming that a sign with the left hand would avail her nought. But now, driven by necessity, she signed herself with that hand, and put the demons to flight. Delivered from them she ran half fainting to the bed of a certain sister, and, breaking silence, told her what she had seen and suffered. Then, as I was informed by the lady Elizabeth of blessed memory, abbess of the same convent, the sisters laid her in her bed, and reading over her the beginning of the Gospel of St John, found her restored on the morrow. Now in the following year, in the dead of night when the same nun was lying awake on her couch, she saw at a distance the demons in the shape of two of the sisters who were most dear to her; and they said to her: “Sister Euphemia, arise, come with us to the cellar to draw beer for the convent.” But she suspecting them, both on account of the lateness of the hour and of their breach of silence, began to tremble, and, burying her head in the bedclothes, replied nothing. Straightway one of the malignant spirits drew near and laying hold of her breast with his hand, squeezed it until the blood burst forth from her mouth and nose. Then the demons, taking the shape of dogs, leaped out of the window. When the sisters, rising for matins, beheld her worn out, as it were pale and bloodless, they inquired of her the reason by signs; and when they had learned it from her, they were much perturbed, both on account of the cruelty of the demons and of the distress of the virgin. Two years before this, when a new dorter had been made for the convent and the beds had been placed therein, the same nun saw a demon in the shape of a deformed and very aged mannikin, going round the whole dorter and touching each of the beds, as though to say: “I will take careful note of each place, for they shall not be without a visit from me”[1801].
The abbey of Hoven, which sheltered Euphemia, seems to have been subjected to a continual siege by devils; or perhaps, as the more materially-minded might suggest, Euphemia’s malady was contagious. Sister Elizabeth of the same house had a short way with such gentry: