This ecclesiastic employed in his service a subordinate 'sompnour,' who, in the course of his official duty, one day meets a devil, whose 'dwellynge is in Helle,' who condescends to enlighten the officer on the dark subject of demon-apparitions:-- When us liketh we can take us on Or ellis make you seme that we ben schape Som tyme like a man or like an ape; Or like an aungel can I ryde or go: It is no wonder thing though it be so, A lowsy jogelour can deceyve the; And, parfay, yet can I more craft than he. To the question why they are not satisfied with _one_ shape for all occasions, the devil answers at length:-- Som tyme we ben Goddis instrumentes And menes to don his commandementes, Whan that him liste, upon his creatures In divers act and in divers figures. Withouten him we have no might certayne If that him liste to stonden ther agayne. And som tyme at our prayer, have we leve Only the body and not the soule greve; Witnesse on Job, whom we didde ful wo. And som tyme have we might on bothe two, That is to say of body and soule eeke And som tyme be we suffred for to seeke Upon a man and don his soule unrest And not his body, and al is for the best. Whan he withstandeth our temptacioun It is a cause of his savacioun. Al be it so it was naught our entente He schuld be sauf, but that we wolde him hente. And som tyme we ben servaunt unto man As to the Erchebisschop Saynt Dunstan; And to the Apostolis servaunt was I. * * * * * Som tyme we fegn, and som tyme we ryse With dede bodies, in ful wonder wyse, And speke renably, and as fayre and wel As to the Phitonissa dede Samuel: And yit wil som men say, it was not he. I do no fors of your divinitie.[77] [77] _Canterbury Tales._ T. Wright's Text. Chaucer, the English Boccaccio in verse, attacks alike with his sarcasms the Church and the female sex. Jewish theology, expanded by their leading divines, includes a formidable array of various demons; and the whole of nature in Christian belief was peopled with every kind 'Of those demons that are found In fire, air, flood, or under ground.'