Adelmo of Otranto and Berengar of Arundel's illicit relationship

The relationship between Adelmo of Otranto and Berengar of Arundel was a secret, illicit bond that simmered beneath the surface of monastic life, a hidden current of desire and manipulation that would prove catastrophic. Berengar, the assistant librarian, was consumed by an "insane passion" for the young illuminator, a passion that the monks whispered about as a sin against nature, comparing it to the vices of Sodom and Gomorrah. Adelmo, renowned for his comeliness and artistic brilliance, was initially the object of Berengar's unrequited longing, but the dynamic shifted when Berengar discovered a powerful lever: the secrets of the library's forbidden zone, the finis Africae.

The Barter of Body and Knowledge

Berengar, described by the monk Benno as using "the weapon of extortion," proposed a vile barter to Adelmo: the secret of the finis Africae in exchange for carnal submission. Benno, who had overheard their dialogue, reported that Adelmo's words of consent were spoken "as if with relief," as though he had secretly desired the encounter and needed only the excuse of intellectual curiosity to justify it. Benno speculated that Adelmo could thus "harbor the illusion of submitting to a sin of the flesh to satisfy a desire of the intellect." This transaction, in which a forbidden book was traded for a forbidden act, sealed their fates. The night before Adelmo's death, Benno followed the pair and saw Adelmo slip into Berengar's cell after compline. Later, he witnessed Adelmo flee, almost running, while Berengar tried to hold him back. Adelmo then rushed to the cell of Jorge of Burgos to confess his sin, emerging with a pale, desperate face. He thrust Berengar away and fled to the church, where he was later found by Venantius. The encounter with Jorge, who likely refused absolution or imposed an impossible penance, drove Adelmo to despair. He encountered Berengar again in the cemetery, hurling at him the same words of damnation he had heard from Jorge, calling him "my beautiful master" in a tone of bitter reproach, before throwing himself from the cliff.

The Aftermath of Guilt and Manipulation

Berengar was shattered by Adelmo's death. He confessed to William that he had seen Adelmo's ghost in the cemetery, a vision that was clearly a hallucination born of his own guilt and terror. The ghost, he claimed, spoke of the pains of hell and called him "my beautiful master," a phrase that revealed Berengar's own remorse for having taught Adelmo the sin that led to his damnation. William deduced that the "drop of burning sweat" Berengar felt on his hand was likely a drop of wax from a taper Adelmo was carrying, but Berengar's guilt made it feel like a piercing wound. This guilt, combined with his fear of exposure, drove Berengar to desperate acts. He stole the forbidden book from Venantius's desk, and later, in a state of extreme agitation, he sought a warm bath in the balneary to calm his convulsions. There, he died, poisoned by the same substance that had killed Venantius, his fingers blackened from touching the lethal pages of Aristotle's lost book. The relationship, born of lust and blackmail, thus became a direct cause of two deaths and a key link in the chain of murders that terrorized the abbey.

Thematic Significance: The Corruption of Desire

The relationship between Adelmo and Berengar serves as a powerful illustration of the novel's central themes: the corruption of desire and the dangerous fusion of intellectual and carnal lust. Berengar's passion was not merely physical; it was a lust for power and possession, using the library's secrets as a tool of coercion. Adelmo's complicity, meanwhile, stemmed from an intellectual pride that made him willing to sacrifice his virtue for forbidden knowledge. Their story mirrors the larger conflict of the abbey, where the pursuit of truth and the suppression of desire become tragically intertwined. The "sin against nature" they committed is paralleled by the "sin against knowledge" that Jorge commits by hoarding Aristotle's book. Both are forms of transgression born from a perversion of love—love of the flesh and love of wisdom—that, when denied their proper expression, curdle into obsession, manipulation, and death. The relationship thus stands as a microcosm of the abbey's spiritual sickness, where the very institutions meant to cultivate virtue instead breed the most destructive forms of vice.