Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Saltzman, Benjamin A.
Titre(s) : Bonds of secrecy [Texte imprimé] : law, spirituality, and the literature of concealment in early medieval England / Benjamin A. Saltzman
Publication : Philadelphia (Penn.) : University of Pennsylvania Press, copyright 2019
Description matérielle : 1 vol. (xv-339 p.) : illustrations ; 25 cm
Collection : The Middle Ages series
Lien à la collection : The Middle Ages series
Note(s) : Bibliogr. p. 303-324. Index
Back cover : "What did it mean to keep a secret in early medieval England? It was
a period during which the experience of secrecy was intensely bound to the belief
that God knew all human secrets, yet the secrets of God remained unknowable to human
beings. In Bonds of Secrecy, Benjamin A. Saltzman argues that this double-edged conception
of secrecy and divinity profoundly affected the way believers acted and thought as
subjects under the law, as the devout within monasteries, and as readers before books.
One crucial way it did so was by forming an ethical relationship between the self
and the world that was fundamentally different from its modern reflex. Whereas today
the bearers of secrets might be judged for the consequences of their reticence or
disclosure, Saltzman observes, in the early Middle Ages a person attempting to conceal
a secret was judged for believing he or she could conceal it from God. In other words,
to attempt to hide from God was to become ensnared in a serious sin, but to hide from
the world while deliberately and humbly submitting to God's constant observation was
often a hallmark of spiritual virtue. Looking to law codes and religious architecture,
hagiographies and riddles, Bonds of Secrecy shows how legal and monastic institutions
harnessed the pervasive and complex belief in God's omniscience to produce an intense
culture of scrutiny and a radical ethics of secrecy founded on the individual's belief
that nothing could be hidden from God. According to Saltzman, this ethics of secrecy
not only informed early medieval notions of mental activity and ideas about the mind
but also profoundly shaped the practices of literary interpretation in ways that can
inform our own contemporary approaches to reading texts from the past."
Sujet(s) : Secret -- Religion -- Église catholique -- Angleterre (GB) -- Moyen âge
Dieu -- Omniscience -- Doctrines religieuses -- Moyen âge
Vérité et mensonge (droit pénal) -- Angleterre (GB) -- Moyen âge
Contrainte (droit) -- Angleterre (GB) -- Moyen âge
Église -- Discipline -- Angleterre (GB) -- Moyen âge
Indice(s) Dewey :
303.36 (23e éd.) = Coercition
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9780812251616 (rel.). - ISBN 081225161X
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb45809145z
Notice n° :
FRBNF45809145
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)