From the thirteenth century we have the "Play of St. Nicholas" by Jean Bodel, and the "Miracle of Theophilus" by Rutebeuf.
His chief topics are the iniquities of the friars, and the defence of the secular clergy of the University of Paris against their encroachments; and he delivered a series of eloquent and insistent poems (1262, 1263, 1268, 1274) exhorting princes and people to take part in the Crusades.
•
The subject of Theophilus of Adana, the Cilician monk who made a pact with the devil, which was afterwards returned to him by the intervention of the Virgin, was a familiar one with the storytellers of the Middle Ages.
Rutebeuf |