Venantius Fortunatus, in a poem (2.13) on an oratory built by a certain 'Trasaricus', mentions its relics of *Peter (the Apostle, S00036), *Paul (the Apostle, S00008), *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050) and *Remigius (bishop of Reims, ob. c. 533, S00456); perhaps in Toul (eastern Gaul), in the mid-6th c. Written in Latin in Gaul, 565/576.
E05639
Literary - Poems
Venantius Fortunatus
Venantius Fortunatus, Poems 2.13 (De oratorio Trasarici, 'On the oratory of Trasaricus')
Lucida perspicui nituerunt limina templi,
quo capit haud dubiam spem veneranda fides.
Haec est aula Petri, caelos qui clave catenat,
substitit et pelagus quo gradiente lapis.
Sedibus his Paulus habitat, tuba gentibus una, 5
et qui praedo prius, hic modo praeco manet.
Martini domus est, Christum qui vestit egentem,
regem tiro tegens et homo iure deum.
Ecce sacerdotis sacri micat aula Remedi
qui tenebras mundi liquit et astra tenet. 10
Cultor opime dei templum, Trasarice, locasti:
has cui persolvis reddet amator opes.
'The threshold of the radiant church has won a brilliant luster, where pious faith receives hopes that brook no doubt. This is the hall of Peter, who confines the sky with his keys, and at whose step sea became solid stone. (5) Paul occupies this abode too, sole clarion to the nations; a man who once was a persecutor, but now is a preacher. It is the house of Martin, who clothed Christ as a poor man, a raw recruit cloaking a king and a man rightly covering God. (9) See, too, the hall of the holy bishop Remedius is aglow, who has left the darkness of the world to occupy the stars. Trasaricus, noble devotee of God, you have set up a church; this wealth you expend, its recipient will pay back to you in love.'
Text: Leo 1881, 41-42.
Translation: Roberts 2017, 103.
Cult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityConstruction of cult buildings
RelicsUnspecified relic
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
The Trasaricus/Trasaric of this poem was probably the same man as a Trasaricus who is the addressee of a letter in the Austrasian Letters, from which we learn that he was from north-east Gaul; he was perhaps Trisericus, bishop of Toul, documented in the mid 6th century (Roberts 2017, 848; Pietri and Heijmans 2013, 1894-95, 'Trasaricus').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.
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
03/06/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00008 | Paul, the Apostle | Paulus | Certain | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Peter | Certain | S00050 | Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397 | Martinus | Certain | S00456 | Remigius, bishop of Reims, ob. c. 533 | Remedius | Certain |
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