Venantius Fortunatus writes a poem (10.10) on the oratory dedicated to *Gabriel (the Archangel, S00192), built by Gregory (bishop of Tours, 573-594) in Artannes (north-west Gaul), and lists the relics housed there. Written in Latin in Gaul, 576/594.
E05759
Literary - Poems
Venantius Fortunatus
Venantius Fortunatus, Poems 10.10 (Versus de oratorio Artannensi, 'Verses on the oratory of Artannes')
Magna beatorum retinet haec terra talenta,
divinis opibus dives habetur humus.
Pars dextra angelico Gabrielis honore coruscat,
gaudia qui mundo detulit ore sacro,
quando aeternalem concepit virgo salutem, 5
dona redemptoris nuntius iste ferens.
Laeva est parte lapis tumuli, quem corpore Christus
pressit morte brevi, victor eundo patri.
Hic quoque reliquiis micat ille Gregorius almis,
qui probus igne redit nec pice mersus obit. 10
Sunt etiam Cosmas, Damianus et ipse, salubres
non ferro artifices, sed medicante fide.
Est Iulianus item, gladio iugulatus amico,
plebs quem Arverna colens arma salutis habet;
Martinusque sacer, retinet quem Gallicus orbis, 15
cuius Christum operit dimidiata chlamys,
se tunica spolians nudum qui vestit egenum,
unde datae sibi sunt alba topazus onyx,
quae meruere aliqui hoc in corpore cernere sancti,
gemmarumque sonus quod patefecit opus. 20
Additur hic meritis cum nomine Victor opimis,
munere martyrii qui tenet alta poli;
hic veteris virtute viri nova palma Niceti,
urbem Lugdunum qui fovet ore, sinu.
Horum pastor opem corde, ore Gregorius orat, 25
vivat ut altithrono vir sine fine deo.
'This spot possesses a great wealth of the blessed; the earth is rich with the riches of God. The right side shines brightly with the glory of the angel Gabriel, who brought joy to the world from his sacred lips, when a virgin conceived eternal salvation, and who carried the message of the redeemer’s bounty. (7) On the left is a stone from the tomb that Christ with his body burdened briefly in death before returning in victory to his father. Here too that Gregory shines with his bountiful relics who by his virtue emerged unscathed from fire and when plunged in pitch did not die. (11) Also here are the physicians Cosmas and Damian, who practice not with a scalpel, but by the healing power of faith. Again there is Julian, whose throat was cut by a kindly sword - in honoring him the people of Auvergne win the weapons of salvation - (15) and saintly Martin, whom the Gallic realm claims for itself, whose halved cloak served to cover Christ, who stripped off his tunic to clothe a naked poor man, for which he received pearls, topaz, and onyx, which some were found worthy to see on the body of the saint, while the sound of the jewels revealed what had happened. (20) Present here too is Victor, victorious in name and in his rich virtues, who as a reward for martyrdom possesses the heights of heaven; and here too Nicetius, whose palm is new but powers of long standing, who protects the city of Lyon with voice and embrace. (25) Gregory begs for the aid of all these with heart and with speech, to live forever, though a man, with God the high-enthroned.'
Text: Leo 1881, 244-245.
Translation: Roberts 2017, 681 and 683.
Oratory
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
MiraclesMiracle during lifetime
Other specified miracle
RelicsUnspecified relic
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
The socially marginal (beggars, prostitutes, thieves)
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
This poem was written on the occasion of the dedication of an oratory to the Archangel Gabriel, at Artannes in the territory of Tours, built by Gregory of Tours (bishop of Tours 573-594). Poems 10.5 (see E05756) was written on the same occasion, and is addressed to visitors to the building; in it, the dedication to Gabriel is explicit. Like Poem 10.5, it may have been written in order to be inscribed or painted within the oratory (Pietri 1983, 826-828).Of the relics listed, the first is a piece of stone from the Holy Sepulchre. The first saint mentioned, Gregorius, is then something of a mystery, because Fortunatus is unquestionably describing a martyr (who, before his final release, survives other torments), while the only martyred 'Gregorius' we know of is a very obscure martyr of Rome (S00730), with no evidence of cult beyond that city. It is tempting to think that this is an error for 'Georgius'/George, whose name would scan just as well in the verse and who had well-attested cult in sixth-century Gaul: see E05638 for a basilica of George in Mainz, and E00653 for his relics in the territory of Limoges. Furthermore, he was a martyr who survived several attempts to kill him, on one occasion involving fire and pitch: see E06147 for a detailed summary of his extravagant Martyrdom, fire and pitch featuring at chapter 10. This Martyrdom was certainly circulating in Latin translation in the West by the sixth century, because the Passio Georgii is one of the texts condemned as apocryphal in the Decretum Gelasianum, written in the early sixth century, probably in southern Gaul (E03338).
The manuscripts are, however, unequivocal in reading 'Gregorius' in line 9, despite Leo in his MGH edition sowing confusion by suggesting that four early manuscripts have 'Georgius'. Reydellet (vol. 3, 87), who checked all the manuscripts for his edition, explicitly refutes Leo's claim - 'il n'y a pas de variante georgius dans P M R F' - and autopsy of the three of these available on line ('P', a St Petersburg manuscript, is not), confirms Reydellet's statement. We are therefore left with a puzzle - the manuscripts are consistent in telling us that the first-mentioned saintly relics in the oratory at Artannes were of a martyr 'Gregorius'; but no such martyr is known, while the martyr 'Georgius' would fit the context well.
There is one further piece of evidence, which has not so far been noticed, that perhaps tips probability in favour of George/Georgius. In his Martyrdom (E06147), George is killed in different ways three times, and then brought back to life by divine intervention (before finally, and definitively, dying by the sword). On the first occasion (chapter 5), the Archangel Michael plays an important role in bringing him back to life, and on the third (chapters 15-16) God does it without aid; but on the second occasion (chapter 10) it is the Archangel Gabriel who gathers up the remains of George, so that he can be resurrected, and it is on this occasion that his body has been boiled up in a cauldron with pitch and other substances. Relics of George, and a possible reference to this particular part of his suffering (involving fire and pitch), would therefore fit very well in an oratory and poem honouring the Archangel Gabriel. If this is correct, and 'Gregorius' is an error for 'Georgius', the mistake must have happened at a very early stage in the manuscript transmission, since it is present in all the early manuscripts. If correct, it is also interesting, because it would show that Gregory of Tours (and Fortunatus) had access to the Passio Georgii, and - unlike the compiler of the Decretum Gelasianum - believed its extravagant narrative.
The other saints, fortunately, are more readily identified: Cosmas and Damian, brothers and physician martyrs of Syria (S00385), relics of whom Gregory also installed in Tours (E02419); Gregory's personal and professional patrons, Julian of Brioude and Martin of Tours (S00035 and S00050); Victor, who could be either the martyr of Marseille (S00382), or the martyr of Milan (S00312), both saints being known to Gregory of Tours, with both featuring in his Glory of the Martyrs (at GM 76, E00623 and GM 44, E00542, respectively); and, interestingly, one much more recent non-martyr saint, Nicetius, bishop of Lyon (S00049), Gregory's great-uncle, who had died only in 573 and whose cult Gregory was keen to foster (see, in particular, Gregory's Life of Nicetius, included by him in his Life of the Fathers, E00061).
For a general discussion of Fortunatus' poems for Gregory of Tours, see George 1992, 124-131; Roberts 2009, 269-283; Roberts 2015.
(We are very grateful to Neil McLynn and Stephen Harrison for confirming that 'Georgius' scans just as well as 'Gregorius' in line 9, and to David Ganz and Adam Trettel for investigating and clarifying the confusing manuscript evidence.)
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., La ville de Tours du IVe au VIe siècle. Naissance d'une cité chrétienne (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1983).
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).
Roberts, M., "Venantius Fortunatus and Gregory of Tours: Poetry and Patronage," in: A.C. Murray (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015), 35-59.
Katarzyna Wojtalik, Bryan Ward-Perkins
14/9/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00035 | Julian, martyr of Brioude (southern Gaul) | Iulianus | Certain | S00049 | Nicetius, bishop of Lyon, ob. 573 | Nicetius | Certain | S00050 | Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397 | Martinus | Certain | S00192 | Gabriel, the Archangel | Gabriel | Certain | S00259 | George, soldier and martyr, and Companions | Gregorius | Uncertain | S00382 | Victor, martyr of Marseille, and his companion martyrs | Victor | Certain | S00385 | Kosmas and Damianos, brothers, physician martyrs of Syria | Cosmas, Damianus | Certain | S00730 | Gregorius, martyr probably of Rome, celebrated in April | Certain |
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