Venantius Fortunatus writes the Life of *Paternus (monk, then bishop of Avranches, ob. after 562, S02838), presenting him primarily as an ascetic and founder of the monastery of Sesciacum (northern Gaul). Written in Latin, probably in Poitiers (western) Gaul, possibly in the early 570s, certainly in 568/614.
E06724
Literary - Hagiographical - Lives
Venantius Fortunatus
Venantius Fortunatus, Life of Paternus (BHL 6477)
Summary:
1. Dedication to Abbot Martianus; Fortunatus commends Martianus’ devotion to preserving Paternus’ memory and perorates on the deceased saint’s triumph over death through his virtuous life; in a typical modesty topos, he confesses his inability to properly write the deeds of Paternus but agrees to do so out of obedience to Martianus and to love of Paternus.
2. Fortunatus perorates on the monks’ preservation of Paternus’ memory through their own holy conduct, which he says will be further strengthened by the written record of his life.
3. Paternus is born to noble parents (generosis parentibus) of Poitiers and admirably raised by his mother Iulita; a precociously pious child, he enters the monastery at St. Jouin-de-Marnes (monasterium Enessione) in the diocese of Poitiers, and is soon made cellarer by his abbot; his mother begins to make a tunic for him, but a hawk picks up the unfinished garment and carries it to its nest, and a full year later it is found miraculously undamaged.
4. As an adolescent, Paternus and his monastic companion Scubilio leave the monastery to become wandering ascetics. Scubilio, who is older, divides his cloak (pallium) with Paternus to show their equality. On their journey, seeking an island off the north coast, on which to live an eremitical life, they encounter a certain Amabilis, who informs them of pagan feasts occurring at Sesciacum [now Saint-Pair-sur-Mer (Manche), named after the saint], and they decide to pause there.
5. They install themselves in a cave. Finding the people celebrating pagan rites, they warn them against provoking God. The people ignore their warnings, and the two monks, not fearing martyrdom, turn over their pots of boiling food. The people fear the monks and do not resist.
6. One of the women at the feast strips off her clothes to offend the monks but is stricken with a sickness and languishes for a year. She finally begs the saints’ forgiveness and is healed.
7. Paternus gives away his and Scubilio’s last half loaf of bread to a traveller. When their mealtime comes, Scubilio suggests they eat, and Paternus explains, “Christ, who always abounds, prepares food for his own.” Scubilio is upset, but soon afterwards Witherius, their first disciple, arrives with an abundance of food.
8. After eating the food Witherius had brought, the monks are thirsty, and they pray to Christ for water. Paternus then touches the ground with his stick, and water erupts from the ground.
9. The renown of Paternus and Scubilio spreads, and, after three years Generosus, their abbot, finds the itinerant monks living a life of extreme asceticism (which is described in detail), beyond the bounds of their rule. He orders Paternus to moderate his fasting and to visit the cells of the monks he had converted.
10. Paternus is made a deacon and then a priest by Bishop Leontianus [of Coutances]. Scubilio is ordered back to the monastery, but soon rejoins his spiritual brother. They have been so successful at Sesciacum that the pagan shrine there is turned into a livestock pen. They continue to win converts and build monasteries in the territories of Coutances, Bayeux, le Mans, Avranches and Rennes.
11. A priest, Aroastes, brings his female servant, afflicted with clenched jaws, to Paternus at Sesciacum for healing. He heals her by anointing her jaws with oil.
12. Needing to travel from Sesciacum to Avranches, Paternus asks Scubilio to allow him to take two doves with him, which he himself had raised. Scubilio refuses, saying, “Let me keep these little ones in exchange for your presence.” Paternus replies, “May they remain with him whom they love most.” The day after, when Paternus arrives at the monastery, almost 18 miles away, the doves come to him there.
13. Near Avranches, Paternus heals the contracted hands of a female servant of a certain Ursus.
14. Paternus is summoned to Paris by King Childebert [r. 511-558], who provides a covered carriage to transport him. On his way, at Mantes-la-Jolie (in Mantela vico), he heals a boy of a snake bite. Fortunatus notes that a basilica has been built in that place in commemoration of the miracle. Many people with fevers and those possessed by demons are healed at his arrival.
15. Paternus suggests to Childebert that he provide relief to the poor. The king puts one Crescentius in charge of this task. Crescentius, however, neglects his duty and travels to Burgundy. He is struck blind and wanders for two days. Recognising his guilt, he hastens to Paternus for forgiveness and healing, and he completes his original task.
16. Now an abbot and septuagenarian, Paternus receives a vision in which the bishops Melanius [of Rennes], Leontianus [of Coutances] and Vigor [of Bayeux] appear to him and ordain him bishop. Not long afterwards, the bishop of Avranches dies, and a reluctant Paternus is made bishop, at the wish of the people and the nobility. As bishop he builds new churches, restores old ones, promotes agriculture and aids the poor.
17. At the villa of count Severus in Teudeciaco villa [location unknown] Paternus heals a mute woman.
18. In his thirteenth year as bishop, Paternus fell ill. At the same time, Scubilio, who was at the monasterium Maudanense [location unknown], also fell ill. Both men concurrently wrote to each other, and then set out to meet each other one last time, but, as night fell, they were still separated by an arm of the sea. They both died at the same time, three miles from one another. Bishop Lauto [of Coutances], who had been visiting Paternus, took his body to Sesciacum, while Bishop Lascivius [perhaps of Bayeux] brought that of Scubilio. Paternus and Scubilio were buried together in the basilica at Sesciacum.
Text: Krusch 1885.
Summary: Kent Navalesi (identification of modern French locations from Pietri and Heijmans 2013, 1430-32).
Cult building - independent (church)
Burial site of a saint - unspecified
Cult building - monastic
MiraclesMiracle during lifetime
Punishing miracle
Miracle with animals and plants
Healing diseases and disabilities
Material support (supply of food, water, drink, money)
Apparition, vision, dream, revelation
Exorcism
RelicsBodily relic - entire body
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - abbots
Ecclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
Monarchs and their family
The socially marginal (beggars, prostitutes, thieves)
Pagans
Women
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, 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).
Nothing is known of the Abbot Martianus who commissioned the Life of Paternus and to whom it is dedicated, but, from the content of the work (see below), it is evident that he was abbot of Sesciacum, the monastery founded by Paternus and Scubilio. The Life cannot be dated with certainty, but it could date from the early 570s, when Fortunatus travelled north towards the Cotentin peninsula, where Paternus was active and Sesciacum sited (Pietri and Heijmans 2013, p. 810).
Discussion
Paternus' life can be dated approximately, as he subscribed as bishop of Avranches to a council in Paris held probably in 562/563 and since he was buried by Bishop Lauto of Coutances, who is known to have died by 573. Otherwise what we know about him derives from Fortunatus' Life (Pietri and Heijmans 2013, 1430-32, 'Paternus 3').As befits a Life commissioned by the abbot of the principal monastery founded by Paternus, the latter's over-twelve-year stint as bishop of Avranches is passed over in a single sentence (in chapter 16), in favour of a detailed account of the saint's ascetic activities and monastic foundations.
Bibliography
Text:Krusch, B., Vita Paterni episcopi Abruncensis, in: Venanti Honori Clementiani Fortunati presbyteri Italici opera pedestria (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores antiquissimi 4.2; Berlin, 1885), 33-37.
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. 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 | S02838 | Paternus, bishop of Avranches, ob. after 556 | Paternus | Certain |
|---|
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