Early Medieval Europe - 2023 - Wuk - Constructing Clandestine Communities Oaths of Collective Secrecy and Conceptual

Constructing clandestine communities:
oaths of collective secrecy and conceptual

boundaries in the late antique
Mediterranean
MICHAEL WUK
This article explores fourth- to seventh-century narratives about oaths of
collective secrecy, which our sources typically frame negatively. By examining
the terminology used in reference to these promises, the dynamics inherent
in the practice and its relationship to oath-taking customs in other contexts,
and the influence of Christianity on the discourses around such pledges, we
can see that late antique authors routinely frame the swearing of these pacts
as a transition to a liminal state of existence. Through this rhetoric, church
and state authorities constructed conceptual boundaries between those who
agreed and disagreed with their definitions of acceptable behaviours.
In the nineteenth book of his monumental De ciuitate Dei, Augustine

reflects on the reliance of humanity on peace. Extending arguments
made elsewhere in his oeuvre about the importance of customs which
maintained the fabric of society, the bishop emphasizes that all
relationships require a basis of trust.1 While this excursus on the nature
* Aspects of this article have been presented to audiences at Cambridge, Leeds, and Lincoln. My
thanks also go to Graham Barrett, Shane Bjornlie, Anais Waag, and George Woudhuysen for
help with various points of detail.
1
Augustine on such ‘social necessities’: S. MacCormack, ‘Sin, Citizenship, and the Salvation of Souls:
The Impact of Christian Priorities on Late-Roman and Post-Roman Society’, Comparative Studies in
Society and History 39.4 (1997), pp. 644–73, at pp. 648–52; K. Uhalde, Expectations of Justice in the Age
of Augustine (Philadelphia, 2007), pp. 77–104. The importance of relationship-enhancing customs
was considered by many ancient and medieval commentators: J. Maxwell, Christianization and
Communication in Late Antiquity: John Chrysostom and his Congregation in Antioch (Cambridge,
2006), pp. 118–68; T. Morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early
Roman Empire and Early Churches (Oxford, 2015); C. Rapp, Brother-Making in Late Antiquity and
Byzantium: Monks, Laymen, and Christian Ritual (Oxford, 2015); I. Forrest, Trustworthy Men: How
Inequality and Faith Made the Medieval Church (Princeton, 2018), esp. pp. 11–88.
Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2) 171–193

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172 Michael Wuk
of human interactions begins with righteous, law-abiding Christians,

Augustine quickly shifts the focus to those outside this category to
argue that even these individuals need some form of harmony. Rioters
and agitators, for instance, are said to work towards concord according
to their own ideals, while thieves and murderers inherently cooperated
amongst themselves and with their loved ones.2 Even the legendary
monster Cacus, framed as a solitary, cave-dwelling, bestial creature,
purportedly longed for his own species of peace, despite his existence
outside of typical social norms.
Alongside these groups, Augustine describes individuals who conspire
(conspirati) and swear communal oaths (coniurati) as seeking to enhance
their relationships with each other at the cost of separating themselves
from the wider community.3 Although many aspects of the De ciuitate
Dei have received important attention, the significance of this section
has largely been overlooked, with many anglophone translators taking
coniurati as an emphatic, essentially tautologous repetition of conspirati.4
Augustine’s use of coniurati is an almost circumstantial reference to the
social suspicion of those who swore oaths communally. Even though
corporate associations were crucial features of ancient and medieval life,5
2
Augustine, De ciuitate Dei XIX.12, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, CCSL 47–8, 2 vols (Turnhout,
1955), vol. 2, pp. 675–8.
3
Augustine, De ciuitate Dei XIX.12, ed. Dombart and Kalb, vol. 2, pp. 675–6.
4
For instance, the two most recent English translations – R.W. Dyson, Augustine. The City of
God against the Pagans (Cambridge, 1998), p. 934; W. Babcock and B. Ramsey, Saint
Augustine: The City of God (De Ciuitate Dei) Books 11–22 (Hyde Park, NY, 2013), p. 365 – use
‘(co-)conspirators and confederates’. While Peter Walsh’s translations and Gillian Clark’s
commentaries have yet to reach this point, the available commentaries on Book XIX do not
mention these oaths: H. Fuchs, Augustin und der antike Friedensgedanke (Berlin, 1926);
W. Geerlings, ‘De civitate dei XIX als Buch der Augustinischen Friedenslehre’, in C. Horn
(ed.), Augustinus. De civitate dei (Berlin, 1997), pp. 211–34; G. Krieger and R. Wingendorf,
‘Christsein und Gesetz: Augustinus als Theoretiker des Naturrechts (Buch XIX)’, in Horn
(ed.), Augustinus, pp. 235–58; A. Hofer, ‘Book 19. The End of the Two Cities: Augustine’s
Appeal for Peace’, in D.V. Meconi (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Augustine’s City of
God (Cambridge, 2021), pp. 228–50. As many non-English languages continue to emphasize
the etymological link between conspiracies and oaths, this issue is less evident in other
translations: e.g. C.J. Perl, Augustinus. Der Gottesstaat. Zweiter Band: Buch XV–XXII
(Paderborn, 1979), p. 467: ‘Parteigenossen oder Mitverschworenen’; D. Gentili, La città di
Dio (Libri XIX–XXII) (Rome, 1991), p. 1048: ‘cospiratori e congiurati’. Cf. the
Augustinus-Lexikon, which has extensive entries on the basic terminology for oaths, but no
dedicated sections on coniuro or related words: K.K. Raikas, ‘Iuramentum, iuratio’, in C.
Mayer (ed.), Augustinus-Lexikon. Vol. 3: Figura(e)–Mensura (Mainz, 2011), cols 849–54; R.
Dodaro, ‘Sacramentum’, in C. Mayer, K.H. Chelius, R. Dodaro and C. Mülle (eds),
Augustinus-Lexikon. Vol. 4: Meritum–Sanctimoniales (Mainz, 2019), cols 1258–89.
5
For ancient associations, see the ongoing Greco-Roman Associations series: R.S. Ascough and
J.S. Kloppenborg, Vol. 1: Attica, Central Greece, Macedonia, Thrace (Berlin, 2011); P. Harland,
Vol. 2: North Coast of the Black Sea, Asia Minor (Berlin, 2014); J.S. Kloppenborg, Vol. 3:
Ptolemaic and Early Roman Egypt (Berlin, 2020). For medieval associations, see most
recently: K. Eisenbichler (ed.), A Companion to Medieval and Early Modern Confraternities
(Leiden, 2019); S. Ogilvie, The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis (Princeton, 2021).
Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

Constructing clandestine communities 173
our sources typically frame groups which bound their members through
mutually exchanged oaths, especially for secretive purposes, as illicit and
reprehensible. The widespread and long-standing nature of this distrust
is revealed by turning briefly to the seventh-century Regula monastica
communis of the Iberian bishop Fructuosus of Braga. Stressing about
the gender and (un)free identifications of those involved, the
murky domestic contexts of the pacts used, and the ‘heretical’ beliefs
associated with these groups, Fructuosus disparages ‘unofficial’
monks who utilized mutual oaths in much the same way as Augustine
framed coniurati more broadly: as socially subversive and dangerous
individuals.6
Various studies have examined the reasons why Merovingian,
Carolingian, and Byzantine groups in particular utilized communal
pledges – generally, to bind the swearers together around their shared
objectives – and official prohibitions of the practice, but the discursive
conceptualizations of such promises have received comparatively little
attention.7 Exceptions include the works of Victoria Pagán, who,
examining political conspiracies in earlier Roman literature, has noted
that authors sought to recreate the internal workings of secretive groups
6
Fructuosus, Regula monastica communis 1, ed. J. Campos Ruiz, San Leandro, San Isidoro, San
Fructuoso. Reglas Monásticas de la España Visigoda (Madrid, 1971), pp. 172–4. The terms
‘heretical/heterodox’ and ‘orthodox’ are relational constructs used by authors in reference to
beliefs with which they disagreed or agreed respectively: M. Kahlos, Religious Dissent in Late
Antiquity 350–450 (Oxford, 2019), pp. 105–20. This paper thus uses these terms with scare quotes.
7
Motivations: W. Fritze, ‘Die fränkische Schwurfreundschaft der Merovingerzeit: Ihr Wesen und
ihre politische Funktion’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische
Abteilung 71 (1954), pp. 74–125; O.G. Oexle, ‘Conjuratio und Gilde im frühen Mittelalter. Ein
Beitrag zum Problem der sozialgeschichtlichen Kontinuität zwischen Antike und Mittelalter’,
in B. Schwineköper (ed.), Gilden und Zünfte. Kaufmännische und gewerbliche Genossenschaften
im frühen und hohen Mittelalter (Sigmaringen, 1985), pp. 151–213; J.-C. Cheynet, ‘Foi et
Conjuration à Byzance’, in M.-F. Auzépy and G. Saint-Guillain (eds), Oralité et lien social au
Moyen Âge (Occident, Byzance, Islam): parole donnée, foi jurée, serment (Paris, 2007),
pp. 265–80. Prohibitions: P. Prodi, Il sacramento del potere. Il giuramento politico nella storia
costituzionale dell’Occidente (Bologna, 1992), pp. 92–6; C. Leveleux-Teizeira, ‘Les Serments
Collectifs (conjurationes) dans le Droit Canonique Préclassique (Ve–XIIIe siècle)’, in Auzépy
and Saint-Guillain (eds), Oralité, pp. 247–63. Note also: A. Holenstein, ‘Seelenheil und
Untertanenpflicht. Zur gesellschaftlichen Funktion und theoretischen. Begründung des Eides
in der ständischen Gesellschaft’, in P. Blickle and A. Holenstein (eds), Der Fluch und der Eid.
Die metaphysische Begründung gesellschaftlichen Zusammenlebens und politischer Ordnung in der
ständischen Gesellschaft (Berlin, 1993), pp. 11–63, on late medieval and modern European
oath-bound groups; A. Sommerstein, ‘Sunōmosiai (Conspiracies)’, in A. Sommerstein and
A.J. Bayliss (eds), Oath and State in Ancient Greece (Berlin, 2012), pp. 120–8, on ancient
Greek conspiracies; D. Tripaldi, ‘Secret Books and Corporate Oaths. Coping with the Danger
of Circulating “Sacred” Texts in Some Early Christian Writings (2nd–4th Century C.E.)’,
Henoch 39.2 (2017), pp. 201–26, and C. Barton, ‘A Roman Historian Looking at Early
Christian Religiones: The Coniuratio and the Sacramentum in Second and Early
Third-Century North Africa’, in Taylor Petrey (ed.), Re-Making the World: Christianity and
Categories: Essays in Honor of Karen L. King (Tübingen, 2019), pp. 325–44, on early Christian
groups.

174 Michael Wuk
from ‘the outside’, and thereby reflect the writers’ anxieties about such
associations.8 The same is true of the late antique evidence. Many
commentators frame the practice as an inversion of typical oath-taking
customs, through which individuals publicly asserted their reliability by
invoking higher forces to punish them in the case of perfidy,9 and also as
a transformative ritual, which took the participants beyond the borders of
‘acceptable’ society. As such, although the members of these groups would
hardly have thought of themselves solely in this manner,10 church and state
narratives refer to collective oaths as a means of supporting wider attempts
to construct boundaries between those who agreed and disagreed with their
definitions of ‘acceptable’ behaviours. Owing to the church’s growing social
importance between the fourth and seventh centuries, this rhetoric
developed: excommunication and penance became common means of
marking expulsion from and readmittance into the Christian community,
while the ecclesiastical adoption of oath-taking lent new significations to
the practice.11 For these reasons, the discourses around clandestine collective
oaths in the late antique Mediterranean deserve further examination, and
will be explored over the course of the following discussion.
As the majority of the pertinent evidence was created by commentators
who were not involved in the deployment of these pacts and primarily
referred to them for pejorative purposes, we have few reliable details
about how the oaths in question functioned or were formulated.12
Rather than focusing on the largely irretrievable historical reality of
furtively exchanged communal pledges, this article examines the rhetoric
around their usage between the fourth and seventh centuries. The first
section explores the terminology employed to refer to these oaths and
8
V.E. Pagán, Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History (Austin, 2004); idem, ‘Towards a Model of
Conspiracy Theory for Ancient Rome’, New German Critique 103 (2008), pp. 27–49; idem,
Conspiracy Theory in Latin Literature (Austin, 2012). Owing to the broad focus of these
works, Pagán principally mentions collective oaths in passing or for etymological purposes:
Narratives, pp. 11–14, 33, 47–8, 54, 116, 137 n. 38; Theory, pp. 7, 62, 135 n. 25.
9
Typical oath-swearing practices: L. Kolmer, Promissorische Eide im Mittelalter (Kallmünz, 1989);
F. Laurent (ed.), Serment, Promesse et Engagement: Rituels et Modalités au Moyen Age
(Montpellier, 2008); S. Esders, ‘Schwur’, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 30 (2021),
pp. 26–70.
10
The epistemological issues around pre-modern conceptions of identity – whether individual or
community, compulsory or voluntary – continue to be debated: J. Haldon and H. Kennedy,
‘Regional Identities and Military Power: Byzantium and Islam ca. 600–750’, in W. Pohl,
C. Gantner and R. Payne (eds), Visions of Community in the Post-Roman World. The West,
Byzantium and the Islamic World, 300–1100 (Farnham, 2012), pp. 317–53, esp. pp. 317–22;
M.E. Stewart, D. Parnell and C. Whately (eds), The Routledge Handbook on Identity in
Byzantium (London, 2022).
11
Penance and excommunication: Uhalde, Expectations, pp. 105–34; A. Firey (ed.), A New History
of Penance (Leiden, 2008). Significations of oath-taking: see section 3 below.
12
Exceptions exist: see section 2 below.

the predominately negative associations of these labels. Building on this

understanding of the polemic surrounding clandestine pacts, the second
section explores the reasons for this negativity, in particular concerning
the practice’s dynamics. Although some comparable oath-bound
communities were viewed relatively positively, oaths of collective secrecy
lacked the external performance which constituted a crucial part of late
antique swearing processes. As such pledges excluded church and state
influence from the groups which used them, these pacts were criticized
as perversions of typical practice. The third and final section draws out
the Christian influence on these narratives, which became even more
rhetorically charged from the fourth century onwards. Christian authors
began to worry about the afterlives of those who swore to collective
secrecy, and even began to associate the ritual with ‘heretical’ groups,
who inevitably committed perjury and thereby further excluded
themselves from the ‘orthodox’ community. Through these three
strands, this article argues that the discourses around these oaths were
intended to construct conceptual boundaries between law-abiding,
God-fearing society and the individuals who swore such promises, with
the result that the latter were excluded to the outskirts of the wider
community. By referring to and framing these promises negatively,
church and state authorities aimed to enhance their narratives about
what constituted ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Christian behaviours.
1. Criminal and liminal: terminology and connotations
Groups bound by oath to secrecy were not a novelty of the late antique
Mediterranean. Throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the most
common terms to refer to the swearing of oaths by two or more
individuals are the verb coniuro, the collective noun coniuratio, the agent
noun coniurator, and their Greek parallels.13 Owing to their long
histories of usage, these labels could refer to a wide variety of communal
promises, not all of which were viewed with hostility. For instance, in
his panegyric for the emperor Honorius’ third consulship, the poet
Claudian describes the winds marshalled for battle on the ruler’s behalf
as coniurati.14 In this case, the designation is not meant to offer
13
Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, 11 vols (Leipzig and Berlin, 1900–2022) [hereafter TLL], vol. 4, cols
338.18–341.8 (Gudeman). Greek parallels: E. Seidl, ‘Συνωμοσία’, Paulys Realencyclopädie der
classischen Altertumswissenschaft 4A.2 (1932), pp. 1445–50; Sommerstein, ‘Sunōmosiai’,
pp. 121–2. In later periods, these terms also sometimes referred to magical conjuration. See
also: P. Herrmann, Der römische Kaisereid: Untersuchungen zu seiner Herkunft und
Entwicklung (Göttingen, 1969), pp. 99–115; Rapp, Brother-Making, pp. 25–7.
14
Claudian, Panegyricus dictus Honorio Augustio tertium consuli I.98–9, ed. J.B. Hall, Claudii
Claudianii. Carmina (Leipzig, 1985), p. 56.

176 Michael Wuk
criticism, but rather suggest that the forces of nature had collectively
agreed to serve the emperor, much in the same way that newly recruited
Roman soldiers swore to obey their leaders.15 The fourth- to
fifth-century grammarian Servius even tells us that, in response to severe
danger, citizens of the earlier Republic were drafted into the armed
forces en masse via a group-swearing ritual he terms a coniuratio.16
However, these labels often possessed negative connotations in late
antique literature and, drawing on earlier preconceptions, were
routinely used in reference to communities who had sworn to carry out
deeds harmful to the commonwealth. Our sources frequently describe
the deployment of these oaths in incidents of sedition, with coniuro
and related terminology effectively becoming synonymous with
concepts of conspiracy.17 This discussion started with one such
example, in which Augustine describes plots against the realm as bound
by collective promises. In fact, of the six other instances in which the
De ciuitate Dei refers to group oaths, five concern politically motivated
conspiracies.18 To heighten the negativity of this association, many
earlier authors further claim that such oaths were regularly sworn with
reprehensible rituals. A particularly instructive case comes from
Plutarch’s biography of Publicola, one of the first Roman consuls.
Plutarch claims that, unhappy with the newly created Republic, several
aristocrats plotted to reinstate the expelled king, Tarquinius, by force
and bound each other to this objective through oaths sworn over the
blood and entrails of a human sacrifice.19 While few late antique
commentators go into this level of detail about collective swearing
rituals, these pejorative connotations remained, with numerous reports
of violent conspiracies beginning with a coniuratio.20
15
See further: section 2 below.
16
Servius, In Vergilii carmina comentarii 7.614, 8.1, ed. G. Thilo and H. Hagen, Servii Grammatici qui
feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii, 3 vols (Leipzig, 1881–1902), vol. 2, pp. 173–4, 199–200.
Drawing on Servius, Isidore of Seville makes near identical comments at Etymologiae 9.3.52–5, ed.
J.O. Reta and M.-A. Casquero, San Isidoro de Sevilla. Etimologías (Madrid, 2004), p. 764.
17
Pagán, Narratives, pp. 11–14; Cheynet, ‘Foi’, pp. 273–9.
18
Augustine, De ciuitate Dei I.5, III.2, 16, 30, V.18, ed. Dombart and Kalb, vol. 1, pp. 5, 66, 80, 96,
152. In the final instance, Augustine quotes Claudian’s aforementioned description of the
coniurati winds: V.26, ed. Dombart and Kalb, vol. 1, pp. 162.
19
Plutarch, Vita Publicolae IV.1, ed. R. Flacelière, E. Chambry and M. Juneaux, Plutarch. Vies II.
Solon–Publicola. Thémistocle–Camille (Paris, 1961), p. 61. See also: Pagán, Narratives, pp. 34, 37.
20
E.g. Claudian, In Eutropium II.236–7, ed. Hall, p. 175; Marcellinus comes, Chronicon, s.a. 532,
ed. T. Mommsen, MGH AA 11 (Berlin, 1894), p. 103; Theophylact Simocatta, Historiae IV.1.1,
ed. C. de Boor and P. Wirth, Theophylacti Simocattae. Historiae (Leipzig, 1972), p. 150.
Although some authors – e.g. Procopius, Anecdota II.12–13, ed. J. Haury and G. Wirth,
Procopii Caesariensis. Opera omnia, 3 vols (Leipzig, 1963), vol. 3.1, pp. 14–15 – refer to
‘terrible’ collective oaths, these accounts do not reflect suspicion but rather a general
convention for describing sworn promises: M. Wuk, ‘Provincial Negotiation of Religious
Tensions: Late Antique Oath-formulae in the Greek Documentary Papyri’, Zeitschrift für
Papyrologie und Epigraphik 215 (2020), pp. 237–56, at pp. 251–3.

Some sources differ in their descriptions of such promises, in the labels

used and also the level of violence associated with these plots. Alongside
coniuro, late antique authors often refer to secretive group oaths via the
broader terminology for sworn pacts, as is the case in one of
Cassiodorus’ Variae.21 This letter, sent in 533 in the name of the Gothic
rex Athalaric, expresses fear that several clergymen had bound
themselves by sacramenta intercedentes (‘hindering oaths’) to manipulate
the episcopal elections of Rome.22 Unlike the other instances discussed
thus far, the communication does not suggest that these clergymen
aimed to achieve their objectives by force or challenging the regime.23
This difference is not related to the missive’s use of sacramentum rather
than a form of coniuro, which was also routinely used to describe
non-violent clandestine pacts. For example, one law, issued in 483 in
the emperor Zeno’s name, uses the term in its prohibition of sworn
trade monopolies of crucial resources, such as food and cloth, without
any sense that such plots involved forceful activity.24 The reverse is also
true: violent sworn conspiracies were sometimes described through the
labels used to identify oaths in many contexts.25 Notwithstanding
differences in designation, these promises were, like those frequently
connected with political dissidence, associated with socially subversive
behaviours. After all, merchants who monopolized goods could
destabilize local economies, while Athalaric’s letter explicitly condemns
the clergymen who reportedly swore mutual oaths and accuses them of
abusing the church’s charitable funds to achieve their aims.26
Zeno’s prohibition of sworn economic associations was not the only
official condemnation of communally sworn pledges. As indicated by
the Institutiones of Gaius, whose second-century legislative textbook
draws heavily on earlier jurisprudence, Roman law traditionally forbade
the use of oaths for private non-legal, non-administrative, and
non-economic purposes.27 The swearing of pacts outside of this
21
G.W.H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford, 1961), p. 952, s.v. ὄμνυμι; pp. 973–4, s.v.
ὅρκος; TLL 7.2 cols 663.38–665.7 (Buckwald), 670.83–678.38, 702.26–704.63 (Teßmer);
T. Gärtner, ‘Sacramentum’, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 29 (2019), pp. 281–90.
22
Cassiodorus, Variae IX.15.10, ed. T. Mommsen, MGH AA 12 (Berlin, 1894), p. 280. Owing to
the lexical range of the term, sacramentum could refer to one of the Christian sacraments, which
became increasingly conflated with oaths: Prodi, Sacramento, pp. 64–86. However, as
Cassiodorus frequently uses sacramentum to refer to oaths rather than sacraments, and given
the letter’s interest in contractual agreements, ‘oaths’ is the most probable meaning here.
23
The same is true of the religious and scholastic groups mentioned in the next section.
24
Codex Iustinianus IV.59.2.praef., ed. P. Krüger, Codex Iustinianus, in W. Kroll, P. Krüger,
T. Mommsen and R. Schöll (eds), Corpus iuris civilis, 3 vols (Berlin, 1877–1912), vol. 2, p. 387.
25
E.g. Procopius, De bellis IV.14.20–1, 18.2, VII.32.16–17, ed. Haury and Wirth, vol. 1, pp. 485,
505, vol. 2, p. 436, which use ὄμνυμι and ὅρκος.
26
Cassiodorus, Variae IX.15.3–4, 10–11, ed. Mommsen, pp. 279–81.
27
Gaius, Institutiones III.96, ed. E. Seckel and B. Kuebler, Gai Institutiones (Leipzig, 1908), p. 151.
However, Gaius does note that provincial laws sometimes differed on this point.

178 Michael Wuk
definition of what was legally acceptable was taken as proof that the
swearers planned some form of criminal activity. As reflected by one
constitution passed in 397 under the auspices of Arcadius and
Honorius, this stance to some extent continued to feature in legal
sources. The law threatens punishment against individuals who plotted
one of three things: to assassinate senior imperial advisers, form a
criminal band ( factio scelesta), or use ‘oaths of that sort of band’
(sacramenta factionis ipsius).28 The conflation of these three activities
under the heading of treason is evidently meant to frame the use of
collective oaths as a reprehensible matter. The constitution further
suggests that anyone who was found to have planned one of these
activities would suffer the severe penalties of execution, confiscation of
property and wealth, and the marking of their families with infamy.29
A similar prohibition can be found in the church canons issued after
the Council of Chalcedon in 451. According to the eighteenth canon,
which also refers to the aforementioned constitution of Arcadius and
Honorius, clergymen and monks who plotted intrigues, banded
together, or swore collective oaths (συνομνύμενοι) were to be
permanently deposed.30 Owing to the continuing social suspicion of
groups bound by furtive oaths, this rule has been repeated and
developed in many subsequent canonical collections.31 The
implementation of these state- and church-sanctioned prohibitions, as
well as the dire penalties threatened against those who ignored these
directives, may reflect genuine anxieties about what these promises
entailed and the motivations of those who used them. At the least,
these enactments certainly augmented the invective around oaths of
collective secrecy and thereby officially pushed the groups which relied
on them outside the limits of acceptable society.
2. Exclusivity and perversity: the performative dynamics of

clandestine group oaths
The polemic that is levelled against the swearers of furtive communal

oaths is at least partially connected to the aims and perspectives of the
28
Codex Theodosianus IX.14.3.praef. (= Codex Iustinianus IX.8.5.praef.), ed. T. Mommsen and
P.M. Meyer, Theodosiani Libri XVI cum Constitutionibus Sirmondianis et Leges Novellae ad
Theodosianum Pertinentes, 2 vols (Berlin, 1904–5), vol. 1, p. 458.
29
Codex Theodosianus IX.14.3.praef.–6 (= Codex Iustinianus IX.8.5.praef.–6), ed. Mommsen and
Meyer, vol. 1, p. 458. Compare: Pseudo-Maurice, Strategikon I.6.5, ed. G.T. Dennis, Das
Strategikon des Maurikios (Vienna, 1981), p. 94.
30
Canon 18, ed. E. Schwartz, Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum. Tomus II: Concilium universale
Chalcedonense. Volumen I: Acta Graeca, 2 vols (Berlin, 1962–5), vol. 2, p. 161.
31
Leveleux-Teizeira, ‘Serments’. There are also precursors without specific reference to oaths:
Oexle, ‘Conjuratio’, p. 168.

commentators who describe them. The sources discussed thus far were
all created by individuals who were unconnected to the actual
utilization of these pledges and, viewing the offering of these pacts and
the related groups from ‘the outside’, primarily sought to criticize those
who used the practice. While some authors frame mutual oath-takers
relatively neutrally for reasons of narrative,32 sources closer to these
groups unsurprisingly tend to represent these promises much less
negatively.
Owing to the secretive nature of such associations, this evidence is
scarce in any period, but instructive late antique instances have
survived.33 One especially useful case comes in the Mathesis, a
fourth-century astrological treatise written by Firmicus Maternus, who
framed his work as an attempt to instruct the work’s dedicatee, the
official Lollianus Mavortius. Towards the end of the treatise, Firmicus
asks that Mavortius swear ‘by the deity who created the world’ ( per
fabricatorem mundi deum)34 to guard the secrets of divination imparted
in the work and only permit the most virtuous members of society to
be inducted into the astrological arts, with the intimation that
subsequent recruits would also have to offer the same pledge.35 Just
before this request is made, the author refers to the Orphic mysteries
and schools structured around the thoughts of the philosophers
Pythagoras, Plato, and Porphyry. Both mystery cults and scholastic
communities used initiation rituals, including comparable oaths, to
initiate new members and delineate community boundaries around
their esoteric knowledge.36 While some oath-bound religious groups
32
See e.g. Zosimus’ account of the general Julius’ counter-conspiracy against suspected Gothic
dissidence in 378: IV.26.5–7, ed. F. Paschoud, Zosime. Histoire Nouvelle, 3 vols (Paris,
1974–89), vol. 2.1, pp. 289–90.
33
Other examples: R. Merkelbach, ‘Der Eid der Isismysten’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und
Epigraphik 1 (1967), pp. 55–73, on one third-century oath-formula recited by initiates into a
mystery cult; Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae XV.5.30, ed. W. Seyfarth, L. Jacob-Karau and
I. Ulmann, Ammiani Marcellini. Rerum Gestarum Libri Qui Supersunt, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1999),
vol. 1, pp. 52–3, who reports that he and the general Ursicinus bound informants on the
commander Silvanus to secrecy with oaths, albeit through the metonym religio, which could
refer to many related rituals: B. Biondi, Il Diritto Romano Cristiano, 3 vols (Milan, 1952–4),
vol. 3, p. 406; TLL 11.2 cols 909.40–916.47 (Wick and Blundell).
34
The (non-)Christian identification of this deity, whom Firmicus gives numerous other
descriptors, has often been debated in relation to the author’s uncertain religious beliefs:
T. Hegedus, Early Christianity and Ancient Astrology (Pieterlen, 2007), p. 10; H.E. Mace,
‘Firmicus Maternus’ Mathesis and the Intellectual Culture of the Fourth Century AD’, Ph.D.
thesis, University of St Andrews (2017), pp. 62–7.
35
Firmicus, Mathesis VII.1.1–3, ed. P. Monat, Firmicus Maternus. Mathesis, 3 vols (Paris, 1992–7),
vol. 3, pp. 150–1, repeated in the treatise’s conclusion: VIII.32.1–2, ed. Monat, vol. 3, pp. 320–1.
36
Cults: O. Perler, ‘Arkandisziplin’, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 1 (1950), pp. 667–76;
Merkelbach, ‘Eid’; N. Belayche, ‘Coping with Images of Initiations in the Mithras Cult’,
Mythos 15 (2021), pp. 140–66. Schools: D. DeForest, ‘Between Mysteries and Factions:
Initiation Rituals, Student Groups, and Violence in the Schools of Late Antique Athens’,
Journal of Late Antiquity 4.2 (2011), pp. 315–42.

180 Michael Wuk
were historically viewed with suspicion,37 scholastic communities,

through which elites received the educational bedrock of aristocratic
life, were respected as an important part of late antique society into the
sixth century.38 Through his references to these groups, on which he
seems to have drawn for his description of an initiation oath, Firmicus
seeks to legitimate not only his request for pacts of secrecy, but also the
study of astrology, which, like collective oaths, was often forbidden by
state laws and associated with criminal activity. The overarching
assertion of this promise and the Mathesis more generally is that
divination was not inherently malicious, as long as the new astrologers
were morally upright and were trusted not to pursue immoral or
treasonous lines of prophetic enquiry.39 In practice, the oath’s
imposition was surely meant to decrease the likelihood that future
astrologers would be discovered and punished.40 And yet, unlike the
other commentators discussed up until this point, Firmicus actively
portrays this communal pact of secrecy positively, as an important
means of preventing a powerful esoteric art from falling into the wrong
hands. As such, the swearing of these oaths is painted not as suspicious,
but rather as a morally necessary action.
Notwithstanding this difference in framing, Firmicus’ account does
bear one important similarity to descriptions of collective oaths from
‘the outside’: the delineation of a conceptual boundary. Firmicus’
astrological recruits were inherently separated from the rest of society
by their selection as the most virtuous individuals and their access to
secretive information, while those involved in conspiracies, trade
monopolies, ecclesiastical plots, mystery cults, and philosophical
schools are portrayed as purposefully shutting the rest of society out of
their associations, which themselves only existed once these pledges had
37
E.g. Pagán, Narratives, pp. 50–67, on the Bacchanalian affair of 186 BCE; Pliny, Epistulae
X.96.7, ed. R.A.B. Mynors, C. Plini Caecili Secundi: Epistularum Libri Decem (Oxford,
1963), p. 339, Tripaldi, ‘Secret Books’, and Barton, ‘Coniuratio’, on early Christian groups.
Cf. S. Huebner, ‘Soter, Sotas, and Dioscorus before the Governor: The First Authentic
Court Record of a Roman Trial of Christians?’, Journal of Late Antiquity 12.1 (2019),
pp. 2–24, at pp. 10–13, and A. Dolganov and É. Rebillard. ‘Not a Roman Trial of Christians:
A Reassessment of P.Mil.Vogl. VI 287’, Journal of Late Antiquity 14.2 (2021), pp. 177–212, at
pp. 179–87.
38
An exception is the reign of Justinian, who famously cracked down on some schools for
religious reasons: E. Watts, ‘Justinian, Malalas, and the End of Athenian Philosophical
Teaching in A.D. 529’, Journal of Roman Studies 94 (2004), pp. 168–82; idem, City and School
in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria (Berkeley, 2006).
39
Most recently: G. Woudhuysen, ‘Uncovering Constans’ Image’, in D.W.P. Burgersdijk and
A.J. Ross (eds), Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire (Leiden, 2018),
pp. 158–82, at pp. 168–72.
40
See also Macarius, Apocriticus III.42.6, ed. U. Volp, Makarios Magnes, Apokritikos: Kritische
Ausgabe mit deutscher Übersetzung (Berlin, 2013), pp. 290–2, who accuses the philosopher
Porphyry of using oaths for this reason.

been exchanged. Sociologically, the swearing of these promises can be

understood as a rite of passage, a transformational process through
which the participants were thought to have left behind their previous
lives to work within new social structures.41 As can be seen in the
evidence examined thus far, late antique commentators often exhibit a
comparable conceptualization of the practice. The oaths used to enter
secretive groups were routinely viewed and framed as a threshold, over
which the swearers crossed to change their status from ‘uninitiated’ to
‘initiated’ and to enjoy the rewards offered by membership in these
exclusive groups, whether esoteric knowledge, financial gain, changed
political circumstances, or a simple sense of belonging.
As this process inherently pressured the oath-takers to embody their
new collective identifications and become obligated to the leaders of
such groups, late antique rulers regularly imposed comparable
communal pledges on their followers.42 In particular, recruits into the
Roman armed forces routinely articulated analogous promises of dutiful
service as a part of their enlistment procedures.43 Although the uneven
preservation of the pertinent evidence prevents us from determining
the exact choreography of these swearing-in ceremonies, several sources
represent soldiers as offering their oaths of allegiance together, before
their brothers-in-arms, the standards of their units, and (less frequently)
their leaders.44 From the fourth century, the oath’s swearing was also
accompanied by the provision of tattoos, which, placed on the hand,
were originally intended to mark out the bearers in the case of
41
Sociological scholarship on ‘rites of passage’ – a sociological phrase in origin – is abundant:
V. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Ithaca, 1969), pp. 94–130; Q. Lan,
‘Does Ritual Exist? Defining and Classifying Ritual Based on Belief Theory’, Journal of
Chinese Sociology 5 (2018), pp. 1–14; N. Rothem and S. Fischer (eds), Reclaiming Arnold Van
Gennep’s Les Rites de Passage (1909): The Structure of Openness and the Openness of Structure,
special issue Journal of Classical Sociology 18.4 (Newbury Park, 2018).
42
Herrmann, Kaisereid; A. Marsham, Rituals of Islamic Monarchy: Accession and Succession in the
First Muslim Empire (Edinburgh, 2009); S. Esders, ‘“Faithful Believers”: Oaths of Allegiance in
Post-Roman Societies as Evidence for Eastern and Western “Visions of Community”’, in Pohl
et al. (eds), Visions, pp. 357–74.
43
F.J. Dölger, ‘Sacramentum militiae: Das Kennmal der Soldaten, Waffenschmiede und
Wasserwächter nach Texten frühchristlicher Literatur’, Antike und Christentum 2 (1930),
pp. 268–80; J. Stäcker, Princeps und Miles. Studien zum Bindungs- und Nahverhältnis von
Kaiser und Soldat im 1. und 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr. (Hildesheim, 2003), pp. 293–308; S.
Esders, ‘Les Implications Militaires du Serment dans les Royaumes Barbares (Ve–VIIe
Siècles)’, in Auzépy and Saint-Guillain (eds), Oralité, pp. 19–26. Cf. C. Pazdernik, ‘“The
Trembling of Cain”: Religious Power and Institutional Culture in Justinianic Oath-making’,
in A. Cain and N. Lenski (eds), The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity (Farnham, 2009),
pp. 143–54, on the comparable oath sworn by Justinianic governors.
44
En masse swearing: Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae XXI.5.10, ed. Seyfarth et al., p. 223;
Pseudo-Zachariah, Historiae ecclesiastica VII.8F, ed. E.W. Brooks, Historia Ecclesiastica
Zachariae Rhetori Vulgo Adscripta (Louvain, 1953), p. 43; Theophylact Simocatta, Historiae
III.2.5, ed. Boor and Wirth, p. 113. Standards: Tertullian, Ad Nationes I.12.15, ed. E. Dekkers
et al., CCSL 1 (1954), p. 32; Apologeticum XVI.8, ed. Dekkers et al., ibid., p. 116.

182 Michael Wuk
desertion but later functioned as a manifestation of military identity.45

These aspects of the swearing process actively contributed to the
conceptualization of the Roman armed forces as a closed community, a
quasi-fraternity in which soldiers served alongside their compatriots on
their rulers’ behalf.46
This sense of communal identity is circumstantially mentioned in two
fourth-century speeches. The first is the funerary oration for Julian
authored by the rhetorician Libanius, who, discussing the deceased
emperor’s rise to power in 360, tells us that the ruler made his troops
swear allegiance to him. Importantly, Libanius describes the soldiers as
bound together by their oaths, through which they agreed to undertake
the shared burden of service and feared to dishonour themselves before
their comrades.47 Immediately after this claim, Libanius further
suggests that one individual – Nebridius, a praetorian prefect with
some military experience – declined to participate in this swearing
ceremony and was nearly killed by the troops, who reportedly viewed
the prefect’s demurral as a rejection of their community.48 Indeed, the
oath was often taken as emblematic of military identity, as is further
revealed by the twelfth of the Panegyrici Latini. This oration, which
was delivered in 312 by an anonymous panegyrist to celebrate
Constantine’s victory over the rival emperor, Maxentius, notes how
difficult it was to conquer Roman soldiers. In particular, the author
describes ‘the oath’s sanctity’ (religio sacramenti) as what ‘confirms [the
soldier] to be who and what he is’ (quem qualemque . . . confirmat).49
In effect, these sources characterize military personnel by their oaths,
through which the swearers were identified as servicemen, distinct from
the civilian part of society but connected to their fellow oath-takers in
a discrete military quasi-fraternity.
The same is true of the promises of collective secrecy with which we
are chiefly concerned. The point of these oaths was to bind each
individual to the group’s shared aims, whatever they may be. The
45
C. Zuckerman, ‘The Hapless Recruit Psios and the Mighty Anchorite, Apa John’, Bulletin of the
American Society of Papyrologists 32.3/4 (1995), pp. 183–94, at pp. 184–6.
46
Many other facets of Roman military life contributed to this conceptualization: R. MacMullen,
‘The Legion as a Society’, Historia 33.4 (1984), pp. 440–56; J.C.N. Coulston, ‘Late Roman
Military Equipment Culture’, in A. Sarantis and N. Christie (eds), War and Warfare in Late
Antiquity (Leiden, 2013), pp. 463–92; A.D. Lee, Warfare in the Roman World (Cambridge,
2020), pp. 113–27.
47
Libanius, Oratio XVIII.109, ed. R. Foerster, Libanii Opera, 12 vols (Leipzig, 1903–27), vol. 2,
p. 282.
48
Libanius, Oratio XVIII.110, ed. Foerster, vol. 2, pp. 282–3. The same events are also recounted
by Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae XXI.5.10–12, ed. Seyfarth et al., pp. 223–4. Nebridius’
military experience: A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale and J. Morris (eds), The Prosopography of
the Later Roman Empire, 3 vols (Cambridge, 1971–91), vol. 1, p. 619, s.v. ‘Nebridius I’.
49
Panegyricii Latini XII.24.2, ed. R.A.B Mynors, XII Panegyrici Latini (Oxford, 1964), p. 288.

similarities between pledges of military allegiance and pacts of reciprocal

secrecy are even played on by some authors. In his account of the events
which followed the Justinianic reconquest of North Africa in 533–4,
Procopius of Caesarea tells us that a guardsman named Maximinus
bound several soldiers with oaths in an attempt to set up his own
regime.50 The author suggests that the general Germanus sought to
neutralize this conspiracy by enrolling Maximinus amongst his own
bodyguards with the aim of binding him to the emperor and
Germanus himself through the oath of allegiance, which we are
pointedly told was customary for soldiers.51 According to this version of
events, Germanus’ plan failed, with the guardsman ultimately ignoring
his oaths of service. Procopius, again pointedly, mentions this perjury
twice to construct a parallel: Germanus’ loyal soldiers, who were bound
by their oaths of allegiance, are contrasted with the conspirators, who
were united by their furtive collective pacts but thereby disobedient to
their pre-existing bonds of faithfulness to their ruler.52
This comparison, which is meant to denigrate Maximinus and his
colleagues while praising those who fought against them, indicates
clearly that despite their similarities, the swearing of the military oath
was typically not subjected to the same distaste as the swearing of
clandestine communal oaths.53 An obvious explanation for this
difference lies in the latter’s furtiveness. Questions would naturally have
been raised about why anyone needed to shroud themselves in secrecy
and what such associations aimed to achieve. Owing to the exclusivity
inherent in the practice, the deployment of collective oaths was thought
to permit and encourage groups to operate outside of official channels of
authority. It is in this context that the state and church prohibitions of
communal clandestine pacts were issued, as attempts either to counteract
the potential for groups to function beyond the control of rulers and
church leaders, or to push these individuals beyond the limits of
‘acceptable’ society. That the problem of authority was at the forefront of
this discourse is clear in narratives about oath-bound intrigues, such as
Procopius’ account of Maximinus, who neglected his oaths to ruler and
commander to prioritize his agreements with his co-conspirators. As was
the case with many imperial laws, the state-sanctioned prohibitions of
50
Procopius, De bellis IV.18, ed. Haury and Wirth, vol. 1, pp. 505–8, with the oaths at IV.18.2,
vol. 1, p. 505.
51
Procopius, De bellis IV.18.5–6, ed. Haury and Wirth, vol. 1, p. 506.
52
Procopius, De bellis IV.18.7, 17, ed. Haury and Wirth, vol. 1, pp. 506, 507.
53
An exception of sorts is the criticism levelled by some Christian authors against the military
oath to assert the incompatibility of Christian life with military service: Tertullian, De
idolatria XIX.2, ed. A. Gerlo et al., CCSL 2 (1954), p. 1120; Paulinus of Nola, Epistulae
XVIII.7, ed. G. Hartel, rev. M. Kamptner, CSEL 29 (1999), pp. 133–4.

184 Michael Wuk
reciprocal promises may even have been enacted in response to specific

incidents involving clandestine plots and challenges to official power.54
This was certainly the case for the eighteenth Chalcedonian canon.
The canon, which forbids clergymen and monks from banding
together through furtive collective oaths and links these pacts to
intrigues against the ecclesiastical hierarchy, was directly related to the
conduct of priests and ascetics at the ecclesiastical meetings of 448–51.55
These synods were dominated by factional, sometimes violent, conflicts
between the supporters and opponents of Eutyches, an influential
Constantinopolitan archimandrite, and Dioscorus, archbishop of
Alexandria 444–51.56 A major casualty of the ecclesiastical politics at these
meetings was the authority of episcopal leaders, many of whom had been
deposed by independently minded clergymen and monks. Many of the
Chalcedonian canons were carefully designed to reassert episcopal control
over priests and ascetics in response to this perceived threat against the
power of bishops.57 As most of these rules were issued by Anatolius,
archbishop of Constantinople 449–58, after the synod’s conclusion and
subsequently included in the Chalcedonian minutes in the council’s
name, the eighteenth canon was also a reaction to Constantinopolitan
dissent arising from Eutyches’ support base.58 In these circumstances, the
establishment of clandestine oath-bound confederations was represented as
a real threat to ecclesiastical power-brokers, whose influence was prevented
from penetrating into such groups. The deployment of
reciprocally exchanged oaths was highlighted as what made these
communities independent of pre-existing power dynamics by deliberately
excluding church and state authorities. In this sense, this practice was
viewed as a rebellion against the rules and structures of society.
In fact, the very dynamics of collectively swearing to secrecy were
effectively framed as perversions of typical oath-taking processes. The
offering of an oath was at its core a performative action, through which
the parties involved – whether swearer, recipient, or witness (if present)
– publicly asserted messages about themselves and their places in the
54
Laws as responses: F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (London, 1977), pp. 266–71;
J. Harries, Law and Empire in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 47–52.
55
Canon 18, ed. Schwartz, vol. 2, p. 161.
56
G. Dagron, ‘Les Moines et la Ville: Le Monachisme à Constantinople jusqu’au Concile de
Chalcédoine’, Travaux et Mémoires 4 (1970), pp. 229–76; R. Price and M. Gaddis, The Acts
of the Council of Chalcedon, 3 vols (Liverpool, 2005), vol. 1, pp. 23–51.
57
Oexle, ‘Conjuratio’, pp. 166–9. See in particular Canons 4 (monks are excluded from church
debates), 8 (clergymen and monks will answer principally to a bishop), 9 and 17 (the
Constantinopolitan archbishop has greater powers to adjudicate over local ecclesiastical
conflicts), and 23 (clergymen and monks visiting Constantinople will be expelled from the
city by the archbishop for disorderly conduct), ed. Schwartz, vol. 2, pp. 159–62.
58
Price and Gaddis, Chalcedon, vol. 3, pp. 92–4.

wider community.59 At its most basic level, the swearing process was
meant to enhance a basis of trust by summoning higher forces who
would punish the oath-taker for his/her dishonesty. As such, the
practice demonstrated that the swearer was trustworthy and someone
with whom others could interact. This articulation can be seen most
clearly if we return once again to the allegiance oaths sworn by soldiers.
By affirming their loyalty before their comrades, commanders, and
rulers, recruits verbally asserted their willingness to serve their leaders
and fight in the realm’s defence.60 The relationships between those
involved in this process were overtly accentuated: soldiers displayed
themselves as obedient to their emperor’s authority as well as invested
in the empire’s safety. Crucially, while this performance was
intentionally outwards-facing, the opposite was true for oaths of
collective secrecy. Although furtive oath-taking contributed to the
dynamics of the groups in question, in particular by binding the
swearers together and enhancing the control of the group leaders over
these collectives, the public assertions which were a fundamental part
of swearing oaths were missing in this context. Naturally, this absence
was not an issue for those involved in these corporate oath-bound
entities, which benefited from the centripetal dynamics in action, and
goes some way towards explaining why, for instance, Firmicus
represents his astrologer’s pledge so positively. But to everyone outside
these groups, the use of collective clandestine promises was a perversion
of typical practice, and therefore understood to be a liminal, even
criminal, activity.
3. Non-Christian and non-‘orthodox’: developments in Christian

discourses
While the evidence discussed thus far has been predominately late
antique, the general arguments are relevant to other pre-modern
cultures. However, developments in Christian discourse elevated the
rhetoric around clandestine group oaths to greater heights. Perhaps the
59
This performative dimension is present in many contexts, ancient and modern:
H.J. Schlesinger, Promises, Oaths, and Vows: On the Psychology of Promising (Hillsdale, 2008);
A.B. Salgueiro, ‘Promises, Threats and the Foundations of Speech Act Theory’, Pragmatics
20.2 (2010), pp. 213–28; O.G. Oexle, ‘Kulturwissenschaftliche Reflexionen über soziale
Gruppen in der mittelalterlichen Gesellschaft: Tönnies, Simmel, Durkheim und Max
Weber’, in C. Meier (ed.), Die okzidentale Stadt nach Max Weber. Zum Problem der
Zugehörigkeit in Antike und Mittelalter (Munich, 1994), pp. 115–59; Esders, ‘Faithful’, pp.
357–61.
60
See in particular: Vegetius, Epitoma rei militaris II.5, ed. M.D. Reeve, Vegetius: Epitoma Rei
Militaris (Oxford, 2004), pp. 38–9; Pseudo-Zachariah, Historiae ecclesiastica VII.8F, ed.
Brooks, p. 43.

186 Michael Wuk
most fundamental change is also the most wide-ranging: the religious

recalibration of swearing oaths. In many contexts, the practice typically
involved a range of rituals to summon divine oversight. From the
fourth century, these customs gradually took on a distinctly Christian
flavour, such as via the inclusion of the Gospel books or scriptural
imprecations in the oath-formula itself.61 Related changes also occurred
in the punishments visited against oath-breakers. In most periods, those
who violated sworn pacts were threatened with some combination of
temporal consequences – for instance, fines, reputational damage,
execution – and supernatural retribution, but a late antique innovation
was the excommunication of perjurers. While this punishment is often
taken as a novelty of the western post-Roman kingdoms,62 some
theologians, such as Basil of Caesarea, had already threatened
oath-breakers with exclusion from Christianity in the fourth century. In
one letter discussing the correct comportment of Christian life, Basil
states that perjurers were to be immediately excommunicated and only
allowed to receive communion after a period of penance (ten years,
commuted to six if the oath in question was broken under duress).63
Whether or not Basil’s statement represents an acknowledgement of
established practice or an attempt to influence future customs, the letter
does reflect a recalibration in the significations of utilizing oaths and the
ecclesiastical efforts to assert control over the practice. As Jesus had
theoretically prohibited oath-swearing in his Sermon on the Mount,
various theologians debated if and when it was permissible to utilize
sworn pledges. To identify and justify the church’s relationship with this
technically forbidden practice, Christian discourses around the use of
oaths frequently concerned the legitimacy of the powers involved in the
swearing of pacts, the types and forms of promise which were
acceptable, and who was responsible for policing their usage.64 The
context of swearing oaths was thus one dominated by competing
sources of social authority. While rulers continued to issue laws
concerning how and when promises were or were not offered, figures of
61
Gospels: M. Blidstein, ‘Swearing by the Book: Oaths and the Rise of Scripture in the Roman
Empire’, Asdiwal 12 (2018), pp. 53–73. Scriptural imprecations: Pazdernik, ‘Trembling’,
pp. 152–3.
62
Kolmer, Promissorische, pp. 320–2; Prodi, Sacramento, pp. 50, 66–72.
63
Basil of Caesarea, Epistula CCXVII.64, 82, ed. Y. Courtonne, Saint Basile, Lettres. Texte établi et
traduit, 3 vols (Paris, 1957–61), vol. 2, pp. 212, 215–16. See also: Canons 1 and 3 of the Synod of
Orleans in 511, ed. B. Basdevant and J. Gaudemet, Les Canons des Conciles mérovingiens. Tome I.
(Paris, 1989), pp. 72–4.
64
I.M. Kreusch, Der Eid zwischen Schwurverbot Jesu und kirchlichem Recht. Verehrung oder
Missbrauch des göttlichen Namens? (Berlin, 2005); Maxwell, Christianization, pp. 148–51;
Uhalde, Expectations, pp. 77–104; O. Delouis, ‘Église et Serment à Byzance: Norme et
Pratique’, in Auzépy and Saint-Guillain (eds), Oralité, pp. 211–46.

religious significance gradually emerged as custodians of the practice.

Saints were increasingly understood to be specialized avengers of
perjury, and church leaders claimed for themselves the power to make
and unmake sworn agreements, with later canon law taking a special
interest in the preservation of pacts and the punishment of those who
broke them.65 A consequence of this shift towards the ecclesiastical
ownership of oaths is that Christian authors from the fourth century
increasingly represented the swearing process as something approaching
a holy sacrament. ‘Good’ Christians were those who followed the
commands of the clergy by utilizing oaths correctly and keeping their
word, in contrast to ‘bad’ Christians who misused or ignored their
promises.66 In effect, by publicly offering and fulfilling an oath which
called on God or his representatives, a swearer publicly demonstrated
his/her Christian rectitude and, in line with evolving ideologies about
political and religious affiliations, loyalty to the Lord above.67
This general reinterpretation of oaths made collective clandestine
oath-taking, its absence of an outwards-facing performative element, and
the resultant lack of clarity around both the rituals utilized and the
objectives of such pacts a much greater problem. Theologians frequently
worried about how oaths of any type could force individuals to commit
sinful acts in fear of being punished for perjury, and thereby argued
strenuously against relying on such pledges.68 This unease, especially
concerning promises of communal secrecy, colours Athalaric’s letter
discussed in the first section of this article. The missive expresses anxiety
that anyone involved in the plot to manipulate the episcopal elections of
Rome would be unable to disclose information about the scheme as each
individual had sworn oaths and would thereby fear for ‘the state of
his/her soul’s salvation’ (saluus status animae).69 Curiously, although the
communication states that honestae personae (anyone of social standing
or official rank) aware of such a scheme yet not bound by these promises
should report the details to Athalaric’s representatives, the prohibition of
sworn confederacies promulgated under Arcadius and Honorius instead
65
S. Esders, ‘“Avenger of all Perjury” in Constantinople, Ravenna and Metz. St. Polyeuctus,
Sigibert I and the Division of Charibert’s Kingdom in 568’, in A. Fischer and I.N. Wood
(eds), Western Perspectives on the Mediterranean: Cultural Transfer in Late Antiquity and the
Early Middle Ages (400–800) (London, 2014), pp. 23–76; M. Blidstein, ‘Loosing Vows and
Oaths in the Roman Empire and Beyond: Authority and Interpretation’, Archiv für
Religionsgeschichte 20 (2018), pp. 275–303, esp. pp. 292–3.
66
Biondi, Il diritto, vol. 3, pp. 391–412; Prodi, Sacramento, pp. 64–86.
67
Evolving ideologies: Esders, ‘Faithful’; C. Ando, ‘Religious Affiliation and Political Belonging
from Cicero to Theodosius’, Acta Classica 64 (2021), pp. 9–28.
68
E.g. Basil of Caesarea, Epistula CXCIX.29, ed. Courtonne, vol. 2, p. 160; Ambrose, De officiis
III.12.76–8, ed. I. Davidson, Ambrose: De Officiis, 2 vols (Oxford, 2002), vol. 1, p. 400; Salvian,
De gubernatione Dei IV.15.73, ed. F. Pauly, CSEL 8 (1883), p. 91.
69
Cassiodorus, Variae IX.15.10, ed. Mommsen, p. 280.

188 Michael Wuk
encourages the oath-takers to break their word. More specifically, the law
proclaims that anyone who informed on their sworn compatriots would
at the least receive a pardon, while those who betrayed their fellow
plotters soon after the group’s formation would receive greater rewards,
including money and even nomination for public office.70
Although these sources suggest that the authorities who issued them
tried to undermine collective pacts through various strategies, the
broader discourses around such oaths maintain that no measures could
offset the related threats of God’s retribution and excommunication.
Procopius uses this exact concept to express his disappointment with
the magister militum Belisarius, who had reportedly sworn mutually
with his stepson Photius to assassinate the adulterous lover of
Antonina, the general’s wife.71 In a narrative characterized by frequent
references to Belisarius’ untrustworthiness – including the commander’s
previous offering and ignoring of oaths not to abandon Macedonia,
Antonina’s servant and an early informant on the general’s cuckolding72
– Procopius states that the magister militum violated his sworn
agreement with Photius. Although the general seemingly received no
temporal punishments for his perfidy, we are told in no uncertain
terms that, owing to his oath-breaking, ‘[Belisarius] naturally found
God’s hostility set against him in all subsequent undertakings’.73 This
claim is immediately followed by a protracted excursus on the failures
of Belisarius’ career, especially in relation to Justinian’s campaigns
against the Goths and Persians.74 The author’s aim is to denigrate
Belisarius, a figure of ridicule in the Anecdota for his purported
subordination to Antonina.75 Procopius’ description of this oath-bound
plot accomplishes this aim in two ways: by associating the magister
militum not just with the suspicious practice of clandestine reciprocal
oath-taking, but also with the severe penalties for and negative
connotations of perjury. These associations are only intensified with
the claim that Photius, the victim of Belisarius’ broken oath, was
70
Codex Theodosianus IX.14.3.7 (= Codex Iustinianus IX.8.5.7), ed. Mommsen and Meyer, vol. 1,
p. 458.
71
Procopius, Anecdota II.12–13, ed. Haury and Wirth, vol. 3.1, pp. 14–15.
72
Procopius, Anecdota I.21–7, ed. Haury and Wirth, vol. 3.1, pp. 9–10.
73
Procopius, Anecdota III.30, ed. Haury and Wirth, vol. 3.1, p. 24: ἐς πάντα οἱ λοιπὸν τὰ
ἐπιτηδεύματα πολέμια τὰ πρὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὡς τὸ εἰκὸς εὗρεν.
74
Procopius, Anecdota III.30–V.27, ed. Haury and Wirth, vol. 3.1, pp. 24–36. Cf. De bellis
VII.13.14–18, ed. Haury and Wirth, vol. 2, pp. 351–2.
75
In line with the narrative aims of the Anecdota, Procopius also uses this incident to criticize
Antonina, Theodora, and, through these characters, Justinian: (most recently) U. Roberto,
‘Procopius and his Protagonists’, in M. Meier and F. Montinaro (eds), A Companion to
Procopius of Caesarea (Leiden, 2021), pp. 355–73; M. Stewart, ‘Bashing Belisarius: Polemical
Characterizations in Procopius’ Secret History’, Acta Classica. Supplementum 11 (2021),
pp. 245–64.

imprisoned and brutally tortured, but still resolutely refused to break the
pact.76 While Photius reportedly led a laudable life in monastic service77
– perhaps, having paid for his use of communally sworn oaths by his
mistreatment, this ascetic existence was understood to be a reward for
his oath-keeping – Belisarius received no temporal punishment and
instead paid a higher price for his perjury. In this incident, Procopius’
account thus reflects a belief that the vengeance of God for the sinful
deployment and violation of these pledges was unavoidable.
So what was preferable? To maintain such oaths, remain on the
borders of the wider community, and face penalization at the hands of
church and state authorities? Or break these pacts and suffer the severe
consequences of perjury? To some, this dilemma was immaterial. By
entering into this sort of agreement, various theologians argue,
individuals had already doomed themselves to damnation. Particularly
relevant here are the views expressed in the Collationes of John Cassian,
who attributes one set of teachings on the frailty of human
relationships to the fourth-century abbot, Joseph of Panephysis.78 Just
before the source’s conclusion, Cassian tells us that, ‘as has been proven
by many such cases’, monks who had bound themselves privately by
collective oaths would find it impossible to fulfil their promises for two
reasons.79 Cassian’s first explanation is that these promises were rarely
related to worthy spiritual objectives but were rather motivated by
temporal interests. Given that the swearers lacked commitment to some
higher purpose, the pledges had no chance of survival. As the point of
the practice was to establish or emphasize a basis of trust when it was
lacking, this argument relates to the common ecclesiastical concern that
oath-taking in all contexts inherently led to perjury.80 Indeed, the
second major explanation given is that Satan actively looks for and
strives to create opportunities for oath-takers to violate such promises,
and thus secure their places in hell.81 To Cassian, the swearing of these
76
Adding further ironic layers to this narrative, Procopius not only claims that Antonina herself
had previously sworn then broken oaths to John the Cappadocian, whose downfall followed
shortly afterwards, but also suggests that Photius received a vision from the prophet
Zacharias, who offered oaths to affirm that he would help the prisoner escape captivity:
Anecdota II.16, III.12–14, 21–9, ed. Haury and Wirth, vol. 3.1, pp. 15, 21–4.
77
Photius even became an abbot later in his life: Jones et al., Prosopography, vol. 3.2, p. 1038, s.v.
‘Photius 2’.
78
An excellent summary of these teachings and their relationship to oath-taking is provided by
Oexle, ‘Conjuratio’, pp. 194–5.
79
John Cassian, Collationes XVI.28, ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL 13 (1886), p. 462.
80
Other theologians: e.g. Basil of Caesarea, Epistula LXXXV, ed. Courtonne, vol. 1, p. 189; John
Chrysostom, Homiliae in Acta apostolorum IX.5, ed. J.-P. Migne, PG 60 (Paris, 1863), col. 82. cf.
John Cassian, Collationes XVII.9, 14, ed. Petschenig, pp. 470, 473–4.
81
This argument is repeated more generally at XVII.29, ed. Petschenig, p. 498. See also the
comparable assertions of John Chrysostom: Homiliae in Acta apostolorum XIII.4, ed. Migne,
col. 112; Homiliae de imbecillitate diaboli I.7, ed. J.-P. Migne, PG 49 (Paris, 1862), col. 256.

190 Michael Wuk
collective oaths was essentially equivalent to their breaking, as both led to

the same result: condemnation and social exclusion.
This account also indicates that, owing to the increasing pervasiveness
of Christianity in the late antique Mediterranean, the use of collective
oaths was often associated with new groups. Cassian’s Collationes
specifically concern monastic communities, many – although not all – of
which utilized oaths or comparable promises as part of their initiation
rites.82 Like the other corporate entities discussed thus far, ascetic groups
were frequently represented as existing outside of the wider community,
having at least theoretically renounced ‘the world’.83 As is demonstrated
by the Chalcedonian canon which forbids clerical and monastic
confraternities, church leaders were anxious that these communities,
bound by sworn promises, could detract from their influence and power.
Given that some clergymen and monks seem to have formed
self-organized oath-bound confederations in response to the failure of
post-Roman state authorities to impose justice and protect these groups,
it is not surprising that ecclesiastical leaders wanted to assert influence
over such collectives.84
A related discursive development comes with the Christian
designation of these pacts as ‘heretical’. Perhaps the most instructive
case comes from the Regula monastica communis of Fructuosus of Braga.
As briefly discussed in this article’s introduction, the start of the Regula,
which is framed as general guidelines for Iberian ascetic communities,
states with horror that some monastic groups had been immorally
formed by entire households – men, women, children, and even slaves
– swearing communal oaths within the private, shrouded spaces of
their own homes. Importantly, Fructuosus describes such groups as
‘heretical’ environments, which distanced these monks from established
ecclesiastical leaders, ensured that these individuals would inevitably
commit perjury, and thereby encouraged ‘the perdition of souls’
(animarum perditio) and ‘the church’s subversion’ (ecclesiae subuersio).85
By drawing on the concepts of liminality and exclusion discussed
82
P.C. Dilley, Monasteries and the Care of Souls in Late Antique Christianity. Cognition and
Discipline (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 82–90.
83
In particular: A. Diem, ‘Exclusion and the Rhetoric of Accessibility in the Late Antique and
Early Medieval Monasticism’, in S. Joye, M.C. La Rocca and S. Gioanni (eds), La
Construction Sociale du Sujet Exclu (IVe–XIe Siècle). Discours, Lieux et Individus (Turnhout,
2019), pp. 123–47. The similar use of oaths and communal identifications probably stems
from the derivation of monastic conversion rituals from other initiation procedures. I intend
to tackle this relationship, which deserves fuller exploration than is possible here, in a
forthcoming discussion.
84
Oexle, ‘Conjuratio’, esp. pp. 207–13.
85
Fructuosus, Regula monastica communis 1, ed. J. Campos Ruiz, San Leandro, San Isidoro, San
Fructuoso. Reglas Monásticas de la España Visigoda (Madrid, 1971), pp. 172–4.

throughout this paper and explicitly linking these promises to ‘heterodox’

adherents, who were regularly represented as a serious danger to all
Christians,86 Fructuosus sought to represent these monastic groups as
outside of acceptable society. In doing so, the Regula reflects the
changing significations of the practice, the discourses around which
became even more rhetorically charged through the description of these
promises as ‘heterodox’.87
A further development in these Christian narratives occurred with the
allegations that ‘heretical’ groups could be constructed not just by
swearing collective oaths but also through pacts to commit perjury. For
instance, in one letter Augustine claims that Priscillian, an enigmatic
Spanish layman-turned-bishop condemned by church authorities
threatened by his influence and popularity, instructed his followers to
protect their esoteric doctrines by lying under oath.88 A similar
accusation is made in one of Jerome’s letters against those in agreement
with the views of Origen, whose works were increasingly viewed as
‘heterodox’ from the fourth century.89 In response to a request that he
translate one of Origen’s treatises into Latin, Jerome distances himself
from his prior support for the controversial theologian by claiming that
individuals who espoused Origen’s beliefs were made to protect the
secrecy of their doctrines, which would otherwise reportedly be
condemned, by collectively agreeing to lie under oath when conversing
with the ‘uninitiated’.90 As is the case with Augustine, Jerome’s
allegation of ‘heretical’ oath-breaking was meant to denigrate his
exegetical opponents, who are represented as a liminal group in league
against the rest of society. Christian narratives routinely represent
adherents of doctrines with which the authors disagreed as uniform,
cohesive communities aligned against ‘orthodox’ Christians, not least
by naming such groups after prominent proponents of these
doctrines.91 Charges of clandestine oath-breaking fed into this rhetoric.
86
M.V. Escribano Paño, ‘La Intolerancia Religiosa en el Discurso Legislativo de Teodosio I y sus
Efectos: Terror, Delación y Arrepentimiento’, in A. Marcone, U. Roberto and I. Tantillo (eds),
Tolleranza religiosa in età tardoantica. IV–V secolo (Cassino, 2014), pp. 97–133.
87
Compare also Codex Theodosianus XVI.5.53, ed. Mommsen and Meyer, vol. 1, p. 873, with M.
V. Escribano Paño, ‘Superstitiosa coniuratio soluatur: Jovinian’s Exile in Cod. Thds. 16.5,53 (398)’,
in D. Rohmann, J. Ulrich and M Vallejo Girvés (eds), Mobility and Exile at the End of Antiquity
(Frankfurt, 2018), pp. 69–90, on the condemnation of the anti-monastic former monk
Jovinian, who is described as leading a ‘heretical’ superstitiosa coniuratio.
88
Augustine, Epistula CCXXXVII.3, ed. A. Goldbacher, CSEL 57 (1911), pp. 527–8. On
Priscillian: J.G.S. Sylvain, Priscillien: Un Chrétien non Conformiste. Doctrine et Pratique du
Priscillianisme du IVe au VIe Siècle (Paris, 2009).
89
On the controversy around Origen’s works, see in particular: E.A. Clark, The Origenist
Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, 1992).
90
Jerome, Epistula LXXXIV.3–4, ed. I. Hilberg, CSEL 55 (1912), pp. 124–5.
91
Most recently: P. Robertson, ‘The Polemic of Individualized Appellation in Late Antiquity: Creating
Marcionism, Valentinianism, and Heresy’, Studies in Late Antiquity 2.2 (2018), pp. 180–214.

192 Michael Wuk
It is thus no surprise that Rufinus, Jerome’s friend-turned-foe and an

apologist for Origen’s writings, spends much of the second book of his
polemic against Jerome contesting the existence of any Origenist
‘confederation of perjury’ (confederatio periurii).92 Accusations of
‘heretical’ perjury-bound communities built on the aforementioned
belief that oaths of collective secrecy separated the swearers from their
neighbours, but, by connecting these swearers not just to the future
breaking of oaths but deliberate, active perfidy, also heightened the
pejorative rhetoric around such promises. Through the influence of
Christianity, these narratives therefore developed to push such
individuals even further outside the borders of society, as participants in
groups excluded from membership in the conceptual Christian
community.
4. Conclusion
Whatever the perceptions of those who actually swore oaths of collective

secrecy, late antique authors regularly represent the practice as an
immoral and transitional process, through which the participants
irreversibly entered into a liminal state of existence. Owing to the
dynamics of the ritual, which deliberately excluded figures of official
authority and lacked the outwards-facing performance characteristic of
oath-taking in other contexts, the discourses around these pacts
frequently assert the criminality and immorality of the swearers. The
influence of Christianity only intensified this polemic, whereby such
pledges were increasingly associated with perjury, excommunication,
and ‘heresy’. In reflection of these changing significations, late antique
church and state authorities wove narratives around clandestine
community oaths to cast aspersions on parties who in some manner
opposed or inhibited their influence, whether by disagreement with
their definitions of ‘acceptable’ behaviours and beliefs, incidents of
subversive activities, or simply the creation of theoretically enclosed
groups.
This rhetoric was inherently both inclusive and exclusive. Those who
participated in the practice were framed as in league against every other
member of late antique society, the acceptable core of which consisted
of those who abstained from pacts of communal privacy, and also
conceptually relegated beyond the limits of the wider community.
In this manner, narratives about collective clandestine oaths
directly contributed to the broader discourses by which
92
See in particular Rufinus’ comments at Apologiae in Hieronymum II.1, ed. M. Simonetti, CCSL
20 (1961), p. 84.

church and state authorities sought to divide the world into ‘good
Christians’ – God-fearing, law-abiding, oath-fulfilling subjects who
contributed positively to the realm – and ‘bad Christians’ – those who
refused to comply with the guidelines implemented by their leaders in
God’s name for the benefit of all society.93
As with the wider efforts to define what constituted ‘correct’ and
‘incorrect’ behaviours and thereby to construct conceptual boundaries
around those who supported and contested these definitions, the
polemic around oaths of collective secrecy reflects the desire of
Christian leaders not only to assert their authority over their subjects
but also to navigate the complexities of late antique society. It is for
precisely this reason that Augustine, in the passage with which we
began, mentions communal promises of privacy when considering
humanity’s reliance on peace, as is also the case for many of the other
sources discussed over the course of this paper. Of course, the same
motivations were no doubt shared with the oath-takers themselves,
who sought to bind themselves together and to their shared aims.
These oaths, in practice and in rhetoric, were meant to impose
community identifications on aspects of the late antique
Mediterranean, and thereby construct a sense of unity and conformity
for those who adhered to society’s rules and conventions. Through such
narratives, church and state powers aimed to collect together large
groups of disparate and diverse individuals, even when these parties
failed to recognize the existence of these conceptual community
boundaries.
University of Lincoln
93
Boundary construction: (most recently) Y. Fox and E. Buchberger (eds), Inclusion and Exclusion
in Mediterranean Christianities, 400–800 (Turnhout, 2019); Joye et al., La Construction.


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Constructing clandestine communities:

oaths of collective secrecy and conceptual

In the nineteenth book of his monumental De ciuitate Dei, Augustine

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2) 171–193

of human interactions begins with righteous, law-abiding Christians,

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

the predominately negative associations of these labels. Building on this

1. Criminal and liminal: terminology and connotations

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

Some sources differ in their descriptions of such promises, in the labels

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

2. Exclusivity and perversity: the performative dynamics of

The polemic that is levelled against the swearers of furtive communal

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

were historically viewed with suspicion,37 scholastic communities,

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

been exchanged. Sociologically, the swearing of these promises can be

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

desertion but later functioned as a manifestation of military identity.45

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

similarities between pledges of military allegiance and pacts of reciprocal

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

reciprocal promises may even have been enacted in response to speciﬁc

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

3. Non-Christian and non-‘orthodox’: developments in Christian

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

most fundamental change is also the most wide-ranging: the religious

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

religious signiﬁcance gradually emerged as custodians of the practice.

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

collective oaths was essentially equivalent to their breaking, as both led to

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

throughout this paper and explicitly linking these promises to ‘heterodox’

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

It is thus no surprise that Ruﬁnus, Jerome’s friend-turned-foe and an

Whatever the perceptions of those who actually swore oaths of collective

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

Early Medieval Europe 2023 31 (2)

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