Bonds of Secrecy: Law, Spirituality, and the Literature of Concealment in Early Medieval England by Benjamin A. Saltzman (review)

The thesis of this study is that the medieval Christian doctrine of God’s omniscience had a profound effect upon early English society, especially in matters of law, religion, and literature. Saltzman’s premise is that the recently converted peoples of early medieval England had come to live in what could be called a ‘surveillance society,’ in which they were taught that God sees every single human secret in real time, all the while remaining above and beyond human knowledge. This culture of constant and complete scrutiny by an all-seeing Ruler conditioned ‘the way believers acted and thought as subjects under law, as religious within monasteries, and as readers before books’ (p. 8).

Saltzman begins by examining the early English law codes, in which offenses were seriously compounded by concealment, as in murder or theft. Judicial ordeal was instituted on the premise that God could be called as a witness of deeds for which no human deponent was available. This assumption of divine surveillance was intensified in monasteries where secrecy was ‘even more strictly regulated through the requirements of immediate confession to the abbot, the interdictions against keeping thoughts to oneself, and even the occasional employment of a circa whose job it was to weasel out secrets and infractions among the brethren’ (p. 9). This routine spiritual reconnaissance in monasteries worked in tension with a recognition that a religious also needs some separate space to cultivate a more intimate communication with God through prayer and meditation. The motivation for secrecy was thus of paramount importance in assessing its legitimacy. Even though there was no general ‘right to privacy,’ ‘spiritual secrecy,’ ‘characterized by private prayer and eremitic monasticism[,] . . . was encouraged and often upheld as a hallmark of spiritual virtue precisely because it entailed a deliberate openness to God’s constant observation’ (p. 9).

In turning to Old English literature, which was deeply informed by this bifocal perspective on secrecy, Saltzman examines the famous collection of riddles in the Exeter Book. These short poems deliberately conceal meanings that the reader knows must be hidden within them, generating a kind of cognitive suspense that is pleasurably relieved when the solution is discovered. For Saltzman, these riddles are an heuristic device, teaching the principle that secrets in this world are just not possible—all things conceal deeper meanings; all sins will be revealed; all human intimacies, for better or worse, will ultimately come to light. Saltzman next turns to the Old English poem Elene on St. Helena’s search for the True Cross as a further illustration of holy inquiry into the secrets of God whose revelation is reserved for the faithful, while hidden from the unworthy or merely inquisitive. Likewise, Aldhelm of Malmesbury sought to cultivate positive spiritual inquiry in his Anglo-Latin Aenigmata, a ‘form of concealment’ that was nonetheless ‘decipherable,’ designed partly to pique the curiosity of his readers, but more importantly, to assist them to a higher level of spiritual comprehension beyond their normal grasp or ambition. Aldhelm’s riddles thus ‘often accompany reflections on the Day of Judgment and the revelation of all secrets that the end of time will bring’ (p. 14), a prospect offered both as a warning and a promise.

These conceptions of God’s omniscience created a culture-wide self-consciousness that is distinct from earlier constructions of personal subjectivity and agency. Even though it was not until 1215 that the Fourth Lateran Council enjoined regular confession upon all communicating Catholics, a responsibility for one’s own inner life and thoughts was already deeply enculturated in early English society, especially in monasteries, but perhaps rather far beyond them as well. When the dragon burns down Beowulf’s hall, the precociously Catholic hero ponders in his heart what offense he might have committed to bring down God’s judgment on himself...