In my first article on the story of Eustace the Monk I focused on telling the story of the historical Eustace and his struggle with his liege lord Renaud de Dammartin emanating from the latter's probable involvement with jewish moneylenders. (1) Further I was at pains to point out that there are essentially two Eustaces: the historical Eustace and the mythical Eustace. As we have covered the historical Eustace and his involvement with the jews. It is incumbent on us to examine the ballad of Eustace the Monk contrived between 1223 and 1284 by an anonymous bard from Picardy, and see what relation if any it has to the jews.
The connection between the jews and the mythical Eustace as represented in the ballad is not difficult to find if we but know what to look for.
In the first of the Laisses (i.e., the metered sections of the ballad) we find just such a connection when we are told that Eustace returned from Toledo in Spain to live in the Benedictine monastery of Saint Vulmar in Samer-en-bois (in northern France). While in Toledo we are explicitly told that Eustace had learned black magic and the art of necromancy: the ballad even goes as far as to say that he was for a time the most learned black magician in all of France. Indeed, he supposedly lived in a pit in the earth for a winter and became a pupil of the devil himself. (2)
We are also given very specific details about the kind of magic that Eustace was taught, which is heavily skewed towards divination. Eustace apparently could divine the future from reading the markings on a sword, could perform scapulimancy (divination through the cracks in a shoulder bone) and could find a thief by divining over a basin of water. We are further told that he could enchant people and that he was skilled in interpreting the Zodiac (i.e., astrology) with the latter also being a form of divination.
Again, it is also made very clear in the ballad that Eustace has been tutored by the devil himself and that the devil appeared to him over an extended period of time in human form.
You might rightly wonder at this point what Eustace being a specialist in divination has to do with anything, but this can be quickly made clear by understanding that the practice of magic from the ancient era to the rise of the modern discipline of science developed along different lines in different religious and cultural contexts. We can see European style magic in the mention in the text of the enchantments and curses that Eustace could perform (although jewish magic has its own elements of this), (3) but his specializing in divination points unequivocally to his being taught black magic by a jew.
This is simply because divination is the central element of Assyrian and Babylonian magic, which came to be subsumed into jewish ideas on magic and its practitioners: (4) much as the epic of Gilgamesh came to be subsumed into the book of Genesis. Indeed, the relation between magical divination and the jews was common currency in Christian thought before the ballad was composed to long after it had ceased to be frequently recited. (5)
It is unlikely that the attribution of special knowledge in relation to magical divination to Eustace has been done without deliberate symbolic intent given that despite this heavy emphasis on his divination abilities: Eustace never once uses them in the ballad.
This is a significant oddity worthy of comment as either we are to suppose that the anonymous bard though divination more impressive than the use of behaviour-modifying magic for negative purposes (i.e., maleficarum) in the first laisse, but then suddenly changed his mind for the rest of the ballad or there is a deliberate symbolism in Eustace's specialization in divination.
At first glance this seems like a very difficult question to answer, but it is actually remarkably simple to solve the problem of why Eustace should have negative symbology in relation to negative magical relationships with the jews as well as the devil and also be the hero of the ballads (i.e. they aren't a morality tale per se but rather meant to entertain an audience).
To solve it all we need to do is bear in mind that Eustace does not use magic explicitly identified with jews (i.e. divination), but rather uses the more traditional maleficarum of Europe (which we should remember was not at this time considered particularly immoral or abnormal) because if he was to use jewish magic and the special knowledge the devil taught him then he would have - as the devil is made to say in the ballads - 'done evil' as opposed to simply revenging a wrong on himself. (6)
By not using the specialist magic that the devil had taught him Eustace (unsuccessfully) tries to prevent his inevitable death and, like Faust, cheat the devil at his own game.
Further divination is not actually a very spectacular form of magic focusing mainly as it does on trying to divine future happenings, while traditional European maleficarum is far more interesting and entertaining as far as a good story goes, especially when you start having your characters cause magic-induced sexual orgies to take place! (7)
Thus, we can see that the anonymous bard of Picardy is unlikely to have dithered on the type of magic in which Eustace was deeply versed in, but rather that the type of magic symbolizes the origin of magic in the devil as well as its perceived principle exponents in medieval Europe: the jews.
This symbolism can be seen to extend to the figure of the devil as well since while Eustace does not perform divination himself: the devil does. (8) Throughout the text we find that Eustace's crimes and japes are referred to as 'deviltry' (9) and 'devilish' (10), while Eustace himself is often referred to as being a 'devil'. (11)
What is interesting however is that the mentions of Eustace being a 'devil' are clearly meant by the anonymous bard to be simple indications of frustration and/or chagrin on the part of those Eustace has made fools of or stolen from. This is shown by the bard having the count swear that the tart was a devil because it was hard and caused him discomfort when biting into it. (12) Further the count refers to a man tortured by Eustace as a 'devil' (13) when the former finds it hard to articulate the information that the count needs quickly enough.
There are however several indicative points that Eustace's relationship with the devil is somewhat unusual as we are told that while Eustace learned magic from the devil: he did not complete his training. (14) We are also told that the devil is in Eustace's head (15) while Eustace himself calls on godly lords to help him against the devil. (16)
This is seemingly at odds with Eustace's being trained in magic by the devil and committing devilish acts, but it is not difficult to reconcile when we remember that the overarching theme of the ballad of Eustace the Monk is his own attempts to free himself from the ills that have been done to him. Indeed, if we see Eustace's learning of black magic in Toledo as being the pre-figurative event of the ballad then it make sense of his sudden and out of place vocation to join the Benedictine order as a monk: only to be prevented from actively pursuing the religious life and the literal scourging of his soul by the wiles of the devil.
We should remember that the devil divined Eustace's future and told him that he would only die after having committed much evil and at sea after Eustace had made clear his desire to learn black magic was at an end. This means in effect that Eustace's adventures - caused by his misfortunes - are being caused by the active intervention of the devil in the affairs of man and the principal material agent of that intervention can be best argued to be the jews.
The reasons for this identification of the devil's agents as being jewish are simple enough.
Firstly, we should note once again the fact that the ballad of Eustace the Monk tells us that the devil physically taught Eustace black magic with the particular speciality being divination. As I have pointed out above: divination is a central part of jewish magic, but not traditional European magic and this tells us that the material agent of the devil of the ballad of Eustace the Monk was likely a jewish magician.
Secondly, we should note that the ascription of Eustace learning black magic is likely based on a case of a black magician from Toledo who was caught in Maastricht in 1234, (17) but that the magician concerned seems to have specialised in traditional European curse-based magic as opposed to divination. This then forces us to look to the focus on divination as symbolically illustrating the identity of the 'devil' who taught Eustace such magic. As I have noted above this focus and our subsequent elimination of the surrounding context suggests that the 'devil' concerned was a jewish black magician.
Thirdly I noted in my article on the historical Eustace (18) that the cause of de Dammartin and Eustace falling out is very likely to have been related to the activities of jewish moneylenders in France at the time, which suggests that when the spiritual devil wished to get back at Eustace. This spiritual devil used the people commonly believed to be his material agents in the medieval mind (i.e., the jews) to manufacture a situation where Eustace's Christian beliefs would be tested and whether he would commit the sin of aiding usury or refuse leading in both cases to problems for Eustace.
On the one hand Eustace would blemish his soul once again if he gave in and paid de Dammartin (and thus the jewish moneylenders) and on the other he would be forced to wander the land as an outlaw doing evil in order to survive as well as revenge himself and putting him in a position where the devil could easily 'get into his mind'.
In summary then in the ballad of Eustace the Monk we see a young man of conspicuous ability who in his thirst for knowledge learned black magic from a jewish magician in Toledo only to leave before he had completed his studies and become wholly the devil's agent. Thus, in retaliation the devil arranges a situation where Eustace is forced to choose between living his Christian faith and letting the devil 'enter his mind' or submit to passively aiding the devil's schemes enacted through the jews.
We should be clear that the ballad of Eustace of the Monk is not to understood as a morality tale in itself, but rather a series of popular japes and stories cocking a snook at authority in general which have a strongly anti-jewish sub-text; found in the implications in the text that would have been understood by the contemporary audience but not by later authors, to them.
References
(1) This can be found at the following address: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/eustace-the-monk-philip-augustus
(2) Eustace the Monk (Edition of Denis Conlon, 1972, 'Li Romans de Witasse le Moine: Roman du treizième siècle', Studies in Romance Languages and Literatures Monograph No. 126, University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill), Laisse 1; for an excerpted English translation of the text see Stephen Knight, Thomas Ohlgren (Eds.), 1997, 'Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales', 1st Edition, Medieval Institute Publications: Kalamazoo.
(3) Derek Collins, 2008, 'Magic in the Ancient Greek World', 1st Edition, Blackwell: Oxford, p. 85
(4) Jeffrey Burton Russell, 1972, 'Witchcraft in the Middle Ages', 1st Edition, Cornell University Press: Ithaca, p. 54; also, Edward Peters, 2001, 'The Medieval Church and State on Superstition, Magic and Witchcraft: From Augustine to the Sixteenth Century', p. 185 in Bengt Ankarloo, Stuart Clark (Eds.), 2002, 'Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Middle Ages', 1st Edition, University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia
(5) Peters, Op. Cit., p. 179
(6) Eustace the Monk, Laisse 1
(7) Ibid.
(8) Ibid.
(9) Ibid., Laisse 1; 2; 21
(10) Ibid., Laisse 7; 16
(11) Ibid., Laisse 3; 8; 13; 14; 19
(12) Ibid., Laisse 19
(13) Ibid., Laisse 17
(14) Ibid., Laisse 1
(15) Ibid., Laisse 7
(16) Ibid., Laisse 10
(17) Russell, Op. Cit., p. 163
(18) https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/eustace-the-monk-philip-augustus