Venantius Fortunatus, in a poem (1.13) On the church of *Eutropis (bishop and martyr of Saintes, S00332) in Saintes (south-west Gaul), tells how Leontius, bishop of Bordeaux, magnificently restored the building, in 542/577. Written in Latin in Gaul, 565/576.
E05634
Literary - Poems
Venantius Fortunatus
Venantius Fortunatus, Poems 1.13 (De basilica Sancti Eutropis, 'On the church of Saint Eutropis')
Quantus amor domini maneat tibi, papa Leonti,
quem sibi iam sancti templa novare monent!
Eutropitis enim venerandi antistitis aula
conruerat senio dilacerata suo,
nudatosque trabes paries vacuatus habebat, 5
pondere non tecti, sed male pressus aquis:
nocte sopore levi cuidam veniente ministro
instauratorem te docet esse suum.
Pro mercede tui meruit magis ille moneri;
o felix de quo fit pia cura deo! 10
Nunc meliore via viruit renovata vetustas,
et lapsae fabricae flos redivivus adit.
Aetas accessit, sed haec iuvenescit honore;
unde senes fieret, iunior inde redit.
Hic scalptae camerae decus interrasile pendit; 15
quos pictura solet, ligna dedere iocos.
Sumpsit imagineas paries simulando figuras:
quae neque tecta prius, haec modo picta nitent.
Urbis Santonicae primus fuit iste sacerdos,
et tibi qui reparas iure priora dedit. 20
Cum sua templa tenet sanctus habitando quiete,
instauratori reddet amore vicem.
'How great a love is in store for you, Bishop Leontius, from the Lord, when now already the saints bid you restore their temples! For the church of the revered bishop Eutropis, broken down by old age, had tumbled into ruins, walls were laid bare and beams were exposed, caused to collapse not by the weight of the ceiling but by damp. (6) At night, the saint instructed one of the clergy, who was only lightly asleep, that you were to be his restorer. It was in honor of you that he was honored with the message. O happy the man who enjoys God’s loving concern! (11) Now the old, made new, is refreshed and improved, and the flower of its fallen fabric comes back to life once more. Its age has increased, but that age has the glory of youth; from its very years it returns all the younger. (15) Here is suspended a beautifully worked carved ceiling: wood has provided the pleasure that a picture usually provides. The wall has received images that imitate figures: what once was not even covered, now is radiant with paintings. This man was the first bishop of the city of Saintes, and to you who revive him he has rightly granted primacy. (21) Now the saint occupies his shrine, dwelling there in peace; out of love he will pay recompense to his restorer.'
Text: Leo 1881, 15.
Translation: Roberts 2017, 35, lightly modified.
Cult building - independent (church)
Use of ImagesCommissioning/producing an image
Non Liturgical ActivityRenovation and embellishment of cult buildings
MiraclesApparition, vision, dream, revelation
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
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'.The eleven books of Poems (Carmina) by Fortunatus were almost certainly collected and published at three different times: Books 1 to 7, which are dedicated to Gregory of Tours, in 576; Books 8 and 9 after 584, probably in 590/591; and Books 10-11 only after their author's death. A further group of poems, outside the structure of the books, and known from only one manuscript, has been published in modern editions as an Appendix to the eleven books. For further discussion, see Reydellet 1994-2004, vol. 1, lxviii-lxxi; George 1992, 208-211.
Almost all of Fortunatus' poems are in elegiac couplets: one hexameter line followed by one pentameter line.
For the cult of saints, Fortunatus' poems are primarily interesting for the evidence they provide of the saints venerated in western Gaul (where most of his patrons were based), since many were written to celebrate the completion of new churches and oratories, and some to celebrate collections of relics. For an overview of his treatment of the cult of saints, see Roberts 2009, 165-243.
Discussion
Leontius, bishop of Bordeaux, was a patron of Fortunatus and he and his building-works are the subject of several of his poems, including two poems dedicated specifically to him (1.15 and 16), and one to his wife Placidina (1.17). He is first documented as bishop of Bordeaux in 541/549 and was certainly dead by 577 (when his successor is first recorded). For Leontius, see Pietri and Heijmans 2013, 1145-49, 'Leontius 16'; George 1992, 108-113.This church of Eutropis, martyr and supposedly first bishop of Saintes, was located in Saintes, a bishopric which fell within the metropolitan see of Bordeaux. This church, or a successor building is also recorded by Gregory of Tours - E00581. For the church, see Février and Maurin 1998, 61, no. 4.
The name Eutropis is unusual, and is often given as the more common Eutropius, but Fortunatus' use in line 3 of the genitive form Eutropitis shows that he regarded the saint's name as Eutropis.
Bibliography
Editions and translations:Leo, F., Venanti Honori Clementiani Fortunati presbyteri Italici opera poetica (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 4.1; Berlin: Apud Weidmannos, 1881).
Roberts, M., Poems: Venantius Fortunatus (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 46; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017).
George, J., Venantius Fortunatus, Personal and Political Poems (Translated Texts for Historians 23; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995).
Reydellet, M., Venance Fortunat, Poèmes, 3 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994-2004).
Further reading:
Brennan, B., "The Career of Venantius Fortunatus," Traditio 41 (1985), 49-78.
Février P.-A., and Maurin, L., "Saintes," in: N. Gauthier (ed.), Topographie chrétienne des cités de la Gaule des origines au milieu du VIIIe siècle, vol. 10: Province ecclésiastique de Bordeaux (Aquitania Secunda) (Paris: De Boccard, 1998), 53-63.
George, J., Venantius Fortunatus: A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul (Oxford: Oxford University 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).
Katarzyna Wojtalik
02/06/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00332 | Eutropis/Eutropius, bishop and martyr of Saintes | Eutropis | Certain |
|---|
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