Venantius Fortunatus, in a prose letter to Eufronius, bishop of Tours, included in Fortunatus' collection of poems (at 3.2), asks Eufronius to pray for him at the tomb of *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050) in Tours (north-west Gaul), in 565/573. Written in Latin in Gaul, 565/573.
Evidence ID
E05642
Type of Evidence
Literary - Letters
Major author/Major anonymous work
Venantius Fortunatus
Venantius Fortunatus, Poems 3.2 (Ad eundem = Ad Eufronium episcopum Turonensem, 'To the same person' [Eufronius, bishop of Tours]), § 5
Extract:
Quapropter dominationi et sanctitati vestrae peculiariter me commendans rogo et obtestor (sic ille domnus meus Martinus sua intercessione obtineat, ut cum ipso iuxta merita vestra in luce perpetua vos conlocet divina misericordia), ut pro me humili filio et servo vestro ad eius beatum sepulcrum orare digneris et pro peccatorum meorum remissione pius intercessor accedas.
'Therefore I commend myself in particular to your [Eufronius'] lordship and sanctity and ask and beseech – so may my lord Martin secure by his intercession that the divine mercy establish you with him according to your merits in light everlasting – that you see fit to pray for your humble son and servant at his blessed tomb and that as merciful intercessor you approach him for the remission of my sins.'
Text: Leo 1881, 50.
Translation: Roberts 2017, 127 and 129.
Cult PlacesPrayer/supplication/invocation
Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
Visiting graves and shrines
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
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
Eufronius (Pietri and Heijmans 2013, 673-79, 'Eufronius 4') was bishop of Tours between 556 and 573, the immediate predecessor of Gregory of Tours. This is the second of a group of three texts addressed to him, two prose letters and a poem, which constitute the first three items in Book 3 of Fortunatus' Poems (for a very similar passage from the first prose letter, see E07842). Here Fortunatus asks Eufronius to pray to Martin for the saint's intercession on his (Fortunatus') behalf.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).
Record Created By
Katarzyna Wojtalik, David Lambert
Date of Entry
04/04/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00050 | Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397 | Martinus | Certain |
|---|
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