Constructing clandestine communities: oaths of collective secrecy and conceptual boundaries in the late antique Mediterranean

Abstract

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.