Venantius Fortunatus writes the Life of *Albinus (monk and bishop of Angers, ob. c. 550, S01181), presenting him as an ascetic monk, ideal bishop, and miracle-worker from youth; after his death, his body is lifted and set in a new church by his successor, where miracles occur. Written in Latin, probably in Poitiers (western Gaul) in 568/573.
E06715
Literary - Hagiographical - Lives
Venantius Fortunatus
Venantius Fortunatus, Life of Albinus (BHL 234)
Summary:
1-4. The Life of Albinus is dedicated to Bishop Domitianus of Angers, who had suggested to Fortunatus on a visit of his to Angers that one be written, lest the memory of the saint be forgotten. In the prologue Fortunatus presents as his aim the preservation of Albinus’ merits 'for the edification of the people' (ad aedificationem plebis), while expressing due humility over his ability to do credit to his subject.
5-6. Albinus is born in the region of Vannes near the coast of Brittany to parents of some means (non exiguis parentibus oriundus), and at a young age leaves them to join the Tincillacense monasterium [precise location unknown, but certainly in Brittany], where he excels in ascetic discipline.
7. His piety and devotion are revealed by miracles. While still a young boy, as he is travelling on an errand for his abbot, a violent rainstorm occurs, but Albinus remains miraculously untouched by the rain.
8. Aged about thirty-five, he is made abbot, and the community thrives in piety under his leadership for twenty-five years.
9. By popular acclaim and against his wishes, Albinus is made bishop of Angers; he fulfils his office by giving alms to the poor, visiting the sick and redeeming captives.
10. In Angers Albinus heals a woman with a contracted hand.
11. He raises a boy named Alabaudus from the dead in a village called vicus Gegina [location unknown] and heals a blind man at the monasterium Asiacum [also unknown]. In separate incidents, in Angers he heals a blind man named Maurilio and another named Marcellinus, by making the sign of the cross over their eyes.
12. When a noblewoman named Aetheria is held by royal order at Dreuillé (in Dullacense villa), Albinus visits her and attempts to rescue her from the prison; when a guard intervenes and injures Albinus, the saint causes him to fall dead. Albinus proceeds to rescue Aetheria and pay her ransom to the king.
13. In a village (vicus) called Albivia [location unknown], Albinus heals a man from blindness and demonic possession.
14. When Albinus is too ill to attend a planned meeting with King Childebert, the king sets off to meet the saint but contemplates taking a detour at a fork in the road; the king’s horse, and then a replacement, refuse to move until directed back onto the path to the saint.
15. In Vannes the deceased body of a pious young man is rendered too heavy to be moved to its definitive tomb until Albinus arrives to pray over it.
16. Albinus heals of blindness Gennomerus, a monk of the monasterium Tincillacense. In Angers he asks a judge to release some prisoners; after the judge ignores his request, Albinus prays and causes part of the prison to collapse and release the prisoners. The prisoners honour Albinus for this miracle at the basilica of St. *Maurilius (bishop of Angers, ob. 453. S02421).
17. Albinus exorcises a demon from a woman.
18. Albinus opposes any laxity towards incestuous marriage, like John the Baptist being willing to suffer even martyrdom if necessary: 'without a doubt he merited the palm of a martyr' (procul dubio palmam martyrii meruit). At a synod of bishops he is forced to be less strict and to bless eulogiae [literally 'blessings', presumably consecrated bread and wine] that are to be sent to one forgiven offender; he tells his fellow bishops that, lax though they have been, God is able to punish, and the offender dies before he receives the eulogiae, and before Albinus has heard back from Caesarius of Arles, whom he had consulted on the matter.
19. After his death and from his grave, Albinus' sanctity was also revealed. His successor as bishop of Angers [Domitianus], together with Germanus, bishop of Paris, wished to translate his body 'to a new basilica' (in novam basilicam) but were impeded by the narrowness of the chapel (cellula) in which it lay; some stones miraculously fell from one wall of the cellula, showing how it could be done.
20. Three paralytics and two blind men are healed as his body is being translated. 'By these and subsequent numberless miracles, [we see that] although the limbs of this great bishop rest in his grave, yet the merits of this confessor, through the grace of the Creator, live for all ages.' (His et consequentibus infinitis miraculis, etsi summi pontificis membra recubant in sepulchris, attamen per creatoris gratiam in aeterna saecula vivunt merita confessoris.) He was bishop for twenty years and six months, dying in his eightieth year, on the Kalends of March [1 March].
Text: Krusch 1885.
Summary: Kent Navalesi (identification of modern French locations from Pietri and Heijmans 2013, 99-102).
Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Cult building - dependent (chapel, baptistery, etc.)
Non Liturgical ActivityComposing and translating saint-related texts
MiraclesMiracle during lifetime
Miracle after death
Punishing miracle
Miracle with animals and plants
Healing diseases and disabilities
Power over elements (fire, earthquakes, floods, weather)
Freeing prisoners, exiles, captives, slaves
Power over objects
Exorcism
Power over life and death
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesMonarchs and their family
Prisoners
Ecclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
Women
Animals
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, the subject of this Life, and Agnes, the first abbess of Radegund's 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, 801-822, 'Fortunatus'.Seven Lives attributed to Fortunatus are universally accepted in modern scholarship to be by him: those of Hilary/Hilarius, 4th c. bishop of Poitiers (E06713); Marcellus, late-4th/early-5th c. bishop of Paris (E06716); Severinus, early 5th c. bishop of Bordeaux (E07358); Albinus, 6th c. monk and bishop of Angers (E06715); Paternus, 6th c. bishop of Avranches (E06724); Germanus, 6th c. bishop of Paris (E06714); and Radegund, 6th c. former queen and monastic founder in Poitiers (E06486). A further Life attributed in the manuscripts to Fortunatus, that of Medard (6th c. bishop of Vermand buried at Soissons, E06474), used to be rejected as a later text, but more recently it has been argued that it is one of Fortunatus' authentic works. Many, but not all, of the Lives have prefaces addressing the person who commissioned the text.
These prefaces are written in a more complex style (flattering the cultural aspirations of Fortunatus' patrons) than the Lives themselves, in which the syntax is comparatively simple, suggesting that the main text was aimed at a wider audience. This is also suggested by the brevity of the Lives, by references to 'listeners' (audientes) in the text, and by Fortunatus repeatedly expressing a wish to make the virtues of his saints widely known. Although not conclusively demonstrable, it is very likely that the Lives were written to be read out in church on the feast days of the various saints. (On all this, see Collins 1981, 107-111; Pricoco 1993, 177-9 and 190, note 18).
The dedicatory preface to the Life of Albinus tells us that it was written at the request of Albinus' immediate successor in the see of Angers, Bishop Domitianus, who had set himself the task of memorialising and sanctifying his predecessor. Fortunatus tells us that he was asked to write the Life on a visit to Angers. This is likely to have been the same visit as one recorded in Fortunatus' Poem 11.25 (E05832), which occurred at the time of the annual feast of Albinus and which can be dated to before 573 (for the date, see Pietri and Heijmans 2013, pp. 583 and 811). If the Life was written before, or soon after, 573, it was one of the first that Fortunatus wrote. It was unquestionably written before 581 (because by then Domitianus was no longer alive).
Discussion
Albinus is documented as bishop of Angers in 538 and 546, when he attended and subscribed to councils - the 538 Council of Orléans must be the one where he opposed the laxity of his colleagues on incest (see chapter 18). He died probably before 558, and certainly before 562. His successor Domitianus took it upon himself to sanctify Albinus, commissioning this Life and moving the saint's body to a new basilica. The solemn translation of his body (accompanied by miracles), mentioned in chapters 18 and 19, must have occurred before 576, since Germanus of Paris (who died in that year) was present at the event. Gregory of Tours (Histories 6.16; E02187) attests to this church in Angers dedicated to Albinus, when describing events in 582. For the full details of Albinus' life, see Pietri and Heijmans 2013, 99-102, 'Albinus 2'; and, for the basilica, see Pietri 1987, 76-77.The Life is a short text, without much detail; Albinus' life as an abbot, in particular, is passed over rapidly (the patron being, for obvious reasons, more interested in the episcopal years). The greater part of the Life, as in Fortunatus' other Lives, is dedicated to miracles effected by Albinus during his lifetime. However, exceptionally for a Life by Fortunatus, the two final chapters (18 and 19) are dedicated to the afterlife of the saint: the translation of his body to the new basilica, and miracles at that moment and subsequently. This feature is readily explicable in the context of Domitianus' agenda of building up a cult for Albinus.
Bibliography
Edition:Krusch, B., Vita sancti Albini, in: Venanti Honori Clementiani Fortunati presbyteri Italici opera pedestria (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores antiquissimi 4.2; Berlin, 1885), 27-33.
Further Reading:
Brennan, B., "The Career of Venantius Fortunatus," Traditio 41 (1985), 49-78.
Collins, R., "Observations on the Form, Language, and Public of the Prose Biographies of Venantius Fortunatus in the Hagiography of Merovingian Gaul", in: H.B. Clarke and M. Brennan (eds.), Columbanus and Merovingian Monasticism (British Archaeological Reports : Oxford, 1981), 105-131. (English translation of an article originally published in German in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 92 (1981), 16-38.)
George, J., Venantius Fortunatus: A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul (Oxford, 1992).
Pietri, L., "Angers," in: N. Gauthier and J.-Ch. Picard (eds.), Topographie chrétienne des cités de la Gaule des origines au milieu du VIIIe siècle, vol. 5: Province ecclésiastique de Tours (Lugdunensis Tertia) (Paris: Boccard, 1987), 67-81.
Pietri, L. and Heijmans, M., Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, 4 Prosopographie de la Gaule chrétienne (314-614), 2 vols. (Paris, 2013).
Pricoco, S.,"Gli scritti agiografici in prosa di Venanzio Fortunato", in Venanzio Fortunato tra Italia e Francia. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi (Valdobbiadene, 17 maggio 1990 - Treviso, 18-19 maggio 1990), (Treviso, 1993), 175-193.
Reydellet, M., Venance Fortunat, Poèmes, 3 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994-2004).
Kent Navalesi, Bryan Ward-Perkins
02/07/2021
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S01181 | Albinus, monk and bishop of Angers, ob. c. 550 | Albinus | Certain | S02421 | Maurilius/Maurilio, bishop of Angers, ob. 453 | Maurilius | Certain |
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