Amelia Soth at JSTOR Daily:
Of all the sins that might damn your soul for eternity, mumbling is probably pretty far down the list. Still, in medieval Europe, there was a demon for that: Tutivillus, who totted up all the mistakes clergymen made when singing hymns or reciting psalms. Every slurred syllable would be weighed against their souls in the final reckoning.
In one thirteenth-century version of the story, a holy man sees the demon in church, dragging a huge sack. According to a translation by historian Margaret Jennings, “These are the syllables and syncopated words and verses of the psalms which these very clerics in their morning prayers stole from God,” Tutivillus explains. “You can be sure I am keeping these diligently for their accusation.” You can see the scale of the stakes here: a tongue slip was no minor accident; it was theft from God.
more here.
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