About the Author

The Cistercian prior Caesarius of Heisterbach (1180 – 1240) was a famous author of the Middle Ages – so famous, in fact, that he had to scold his monks for stealing his drafts and publishing them to keep up with the demand for his work. Today we remember Caesarius chiefly for his long Dialogue on Miracles. It is a dialogue between a monk and a novice, where the monk tells the novice stories of miracles that have occurred (often stories that Caesarius knew of personally) and the novice often asks critical questions – sometimes such good questions that the monk struggles to answer, perhaps indicating some hesitation on Caesarius’ own part. In this passage, the speaker who tells the tale is the monk.

A Pact with the Devil and a Marriage

Monk: There lived not five years since near Floreffe, a Praemonstratensian monastery in the diocese of Liège, a noble youth whose father died and left wealth proportionate to his greatness and his state. The youth was knighted and, within a brief space, striving after earthly glory, he fell into extreme poverty. For he was altogether given up to tourneying [that is, going to tournaments where a defeat could mean forfeiting extremely valuable armour] for the sake of worldly glory, and he spent lavishly on minstrels and buffoons: until, his yearly revenues no longer sufficing for such prodigality, he was compelled to sell his paternal heritage. Now there lived hard by a knight rich and honourable though a courtier, to whom the aforesaid youth partly sold, partly pledged, his estates; and now, having no more to sell or mortgage, he purposed to go into exile, thinking it less intolerable to go begging among strangers than to bear the shame of poverty among his kinsfolk and acquaintance. But he had a steward, a man of iniquity, Christian by name but unchristian in deed, and utterly given up to the service of the fiends. He, seeing his master so sad, and knowing well the cause, said to him, “ My lord, would ye fain become rich?” “Gladly,” answered the youth, “so that it were with God’s blessing.” To whom the steward: “Fear not, only follow me, and all shall be well.” Forthwith he followed after this wretch, (as Eve after the serpent’s voice and a bird after the fowler’s snare), doomed to be quickly caught in the devil’s toils. The steward led him that same night through a wood into a marshy place, and began to converse as with another person. “Who are you speaking with?” said the youth: but this Unjust Steward answered his master, “Only keep silence, and don’t worry about who I’m talking to.” When therefore he spake a second time, and the youth asked again the same question, the steward answered, “My speech is with the Devil.” Then was the young man seized with a great horror: for who indeed would not have been dismayed at that spot and hour to hear such speech as this? For the steward said to the Devil, “Lord, behold I have brought hither this noble youth my master, beseeching your grace and your majesty that he may be thought worthy to be restored by your help to his former honours and riches.” Then said the Fiend, “If he will be my devoted and faithful servant, I will give him great wealth, and add thereunto such glory and honour as his forefathers never had.” Then answered the steward, “He will gladly and faithfully obey you for such a reward.” “ If then,” said the Devil, “he would fain receive such gifts at my hand, he must forthwith renounce the Most High.” While the young man, hearing this, refused to obey, the man of perdition said to him, “Why do ye fear to utter one little word? Speak it, and renounce God.” At length the wretched youth was persuaded by the steward to deny his Creator with his mouth, to repudiate him with his hands, and to do homage to the Devil. When this crime had been committed, the Devil added, “The work is yet imperfect. He must renounce also the Mother of the Most High; for she it is who does us most harm. Those whom the Son in His justice casts away, the Mother, in her superfluity of mercy, brings back again to indulgence.” Again the serpent whispered in the youth’s ear, that he should obey his lord in this also, and deny the Mother even as he had denied the Son. But at this word the youth was utterly dismayed, and being moved beyond all measure, he said, “That will I never do!” “Why?” said the other, “You have done the greater deed, do now the lesser; for the Creator is greater than the creature.” But he replied, “I will never deny her, even though I must beg from door to door for all the days of my life”: and he would not consent. Thus therefore both departed, leaving the matter yet unfinished, but burdened with a heavy load of sin, both the steward who had persuaded and the youth who had consented. And as they went together they came to a certain church, the door whereof had been left half-shut by the bell-ringer as he went out. Whereupon the youth leapt from his horse and gave it to the steward, saying, “Wait here for me until I return to thee.” And entering the church before dawn, he fell down before the altar and began from the depths of his heart to call upon the Mother of Mercy: (for upon that altar stood the image of the Virgin Mother herself, holding the Child Jesus in her lap). And lo! by the merits of that most glorious Star of the Sea, the true dayspring began to arise in the heart of this our youth. Such contrition did the Lord grant him for the honour of His Mother, whom he had not denied, that he roared from the sorrow of his spirit, and filled the church with the wild vehemence of his lamentations. At the same hour the aforesaid knight, who had all the youth’s lands, turned aside by God’s providence, (as it is believed), to that same church; and, seeing it empty and thinking that service was being held there, (especially for the clamour that he heard within), he entered alone. Then, finding this youth so well-known to him weeping before the altar, and supposing that he wept only for his own misfortune, he secretly crept behind a column and listened to what was going on. So when the youth dared not to name nor call upon that terrible Majesty whom he had denied, but only importuned His most loving Mother with lamentable cries, then that blessed and singular Advocate of Christians spake thus through the lips of her statue, “Sweetest Son, pity this man.” But the Child made no answer to His Mother, turning His face from her. When therefore she besought Him again, pleading that the youth had been misled, He turned His back upon His Mother, saying, “This man hath denied Me, what should I do to him?” Thereupon the statue rose, laid her Child upon the altar, and threw herself on the ground at His feet, saying, “I beseech thee, Son, forgive him this sin for my sake.” Then the Child raised His Mother up and answered her, “Mother, I could never deny you anything: behold, I forgive it all for thy sake.” He had first forgiven the guilt for his contrition’s sake, and then at His Mother’s intercession He forgave the penalty of the sin.

Novice. Why was He so hard to His so beloved Mother?

Monk. That He might show the youth how grievously he had sinned against Him, and the more to punish the very sin against Himself by grief of heart.

So the youth arose and left the church, sad indeed for his fault, but glad to have found mercy. The knight left the church secretly after him, and, pretending not to know, asked him why his eyes were so wet and swollen; to whom the youth answered, “It is from the wind.” Then said the knight, “My lord, the cause of your sadness is not hidden from me. I have an only daughter: if you will have her to wife, I will restore with her all your possessions, and make you heir in addition to all my own riches.” The youth answered joyfully, “If you would do this, it would be most agreeable to me!” The knight went back to his wife and told her the whole story in order; she consented, the wedding was celebrated, and the youth received all his lands again for his wife’s dowry.

He still lives, I think, and his wife’s father and mother; after whose death their inheritance will fall to him.

(Adapted from the G. G. Coulton translation)