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The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity


from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world


Venantius Fortunatus, in his Miracles of Hilary (12) tells how a burning candle which fell on the cloth covering the tomb in Poitiers of *Hilary (bishop of Poitiers, ob. 367, S00183) did not damage it. Written in Latin in Poitiers (western Gaul), 567/569.

Evidence ID

E05421

Type of Evidence

Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles

Major author/Major anonymous work

Venantius Fortunatus

Venantius Fortunatus, Miracles of Hilary (Libri de virtutibus sancti Hilarii) 12 (34-36)

Summary:

The candle that was burning over the tomb of Hilary fell over. It blazed up where it fell on top of the cloth (
pallium) over the tomb but without leaving any mark.


Text: Krusch 1885, 11.
Summary: Katarzyna Wojtalik.

Cult Places

Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave

Miracles

Miracle after death
Power over objects
Miraculous protection - of church and church property

Cult Related Objects

Oil lamps/candles

Source

Venantius Fortunatus was born in northern Italy, near Treviso, and educated at Ravenna. In the early 560s he crossed the Alps into Merovingian Gaul, where he spent the rest of his life, making his living primarily through writing Latin poetry for the aristocracy of northern Gaul, both secular and ecclesiastical. His first datable commission in Gaul is a poem to celebrate the wedding in 566 of the Austrasian royal couple, Sigibert and Brunhild. His principal patrons were Radegund and Agnes, the royal founder and the first abbess of the monastery of the Holy Cross at Poitiers, as well as Gregory, the historian and bishop of Tours, Leontius, bishop of Bordeaux, and Felix, bishop of Nantes, but he also wrote poems for several kings and for many other members of the aristocracy. In addition to occasional poems for his patrons, Fortunatus wrote a four-book epic poem about Martin of Tours, and several works of prose and verse hagiography. The latter part of his life was spent in Poitiers, and in the 590s he became bishop of the city; he is presumed to have died early in the 7th century. For Fortunatus' life, see Brennan 1985; George 1992, 18-34; Reydellet 1994-2004, vol. 1, vii-xxviii; Pietri and Heijmans 2013, 801-22, 'Fortunatus'.

Fortunatus'
Miracles of Hilary (Liber de virtutibus sancti Hilarii) consists of thirteen very short chapters describing only nine miracles. The work is a complement to his Life of Hilary (see E06713). Both the Miracles and the Life are dedicated to Pascentius, bishop of Poitiers, which enables us to date their composition with some precision to 567/569, since Fortunatus almost certainly arrived in Poitiers in 567, while Pascentius died, and was succeeded as bishop by Meroveus, in 568/569. Gregory of Tours used the Life and Miracles, in Glory of the Confessors 2 (see E02452) and Histories 2.37 (see E02032).


Bibliography

Edition:
Krusch, B., Venanti Honori Clementiani Fortunati presbyteri Italici Opera pedestria (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 4.2; Berolini: Apud Weidmannos, 1885).

Translation:
Van Dam, R., Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

Further reading:
Brennan, B., "The Career of Venantius Fortunatus," Traditio 41 (1985), 49-78.

George, J.,
Venantius Fortunatus: A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).

Pietri, L. and Heijmans, M.,
Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, 4 Prosopographie de la Gaule chrétienne (314-614), 2 vols. (Paris 2013).

Roberts, M.,
The Humblest Sparrow: The Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009).


Record Created By

Katarzyna Wojtalik

Date of Entry

13/05/2018

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S00183Hilarius/Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, ob. 367Certain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Katarzyna Wojtalik, Cult of Saints, E05421 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E05421