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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 a poem (2.16) On saint *Medard (bishop of Vermand buried at Soissons, ob. c. 560, S00168) recounts miracles during his lifetime, and after his death at his tomb outside Soissons (north-east Gaul), where King Sigibert completed the construction of his church. Written in Latin in Gaul, 565/575.

Evidence ID

E05641

Type of Evidence

Literary - Poems

Major author/Major anonymous work

Venantius Fortunatus

Venantius Fortunatus, Poems 2.16 (De Sancto Medardo, 'On Saint Medard', BHL 5863)

Summary:

Medard effected several miracles during his lifetime, especially with the blind, whom he healed with his touch (lines 25-30). He stopped a thief who was trying to steal grapes (lines 31-48); and exposed another thief who tried to steal a cattle-bell, but allowed him to keep the bell (lines 49-64).

After his body was laid on a bier, a blind man was cured (lines 65-76). Another man came to his church, where he was miraculously freed from strong handcuffs and fetters (lines 77-92). A second prisoner, in wooden shackles, was similarly freed after he arrived at the church (lines 93-104). An old woman with knotted fingers was healed at Medard's tomb (lines 105-122). Medard also cured a young girl (now dedicated to virginity), and a baby girl, with similar deformities of the hand (lines 123-138). Another blind man was cured, when 'in his sleep you [Medard]instructed him with your healing commands' (
vocibus hunc medicis monuisti tempore somni) to hurry to your church; after two days lying before the grave, his sight returned on the third (lines 139-156).

King Sigibert completed this church, for whom Fortunatus invokes the protection of the saint (lines 161-164): 'Protect his eminence, who took this church to its height, and protect for his merits he who gave you this building' (
Culmina custodi qui templum in culmine duxit, / protege pro meritis qui tibi tecta dedit).

Finally, Fortunatus himself asks for Medard's aid (lines 165-166): 'Bringing you, through love, holy one, these few [verses], I Fortunatus seek your help; grant me my prayers, I beg.' (
Haec, pie, pauca ferens ego Fortunatus amore, / auxilium posco; da mihi vota, precor.)


Text: Leo 1881, 44-48.
Summary: Katarzyna Wojtalik.

Cult Places

Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave

Non Liturgical Activity

Prayer/supplication/invocation
Visiting graves and shrines
Construction of cult buildings

Miracles

Miracle during lifetime
Miracle at martyrdom and death
Healing diseases and disabilities
Punishing miracle
Freeing prisoners, exiles, captives, slaves

Relics

Bodily relic - entire body

Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Women
Children
Prisoners
Other lay individuals/ people
Monarchs and their family

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

Poem 2.16 was probably written on the occasion of the dedication of the burial church of Medard outside Soissons, though, as Roberts points out (Roberts 2009, 180-187), it is much longer than, and doesn't take the form of, Fortunatus' other poems of dedication. Gregory of Tours records that the work on this church was started by Chlothar, and completed by Sigibert, his son (r. 561-575; Histories 4.19, E02097). The poem must have been written before Sigibert's assassination in 575.


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). Latin text, with parallel English translation.

George, J.,
Venantius Fortunatus, Personal and Political Poems (Translated Texts for Historians 23; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995). English translation.

Reydellet, M.,
Venance Fortunat, Poèmes, 3 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994-2004). Latin text, with French translation.


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), vol. 2, 1311-1312, 'Medardus 1'.

Roberts, M.,
The Humblest Sparrow: The Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009), 180-187


Record Created By

Katarzyna Wojtalik

Date of Entry

04/04/2018

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S00168Medard, bishop of Vermand buried at Soissons, ob. c. 560MedardusCertain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Katarzyna Wojtalik, Cult of Saints, E05641 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E05641