FORTUNATUS, VENANTIUS HONORIUS CLEMENTIANUS

(ca. 530–ca. 609)

Fortunatus, sometimes called the last of the classical poets, was a Latin poet who became bishop of Poitiers in Frankish Gaul. He was a prolific versifier and author of SAINTS’ LIVES, and is still remembered today through hymns that continue to be sung in Christian worship.

Fortunatus was born in Trevizo, near Venice, about 530.He was brought up in Aquileia and converted to Christianity at an early age, and later received a classical education in Ravenna (at that time capital of the Western Empire), studying grammar and rhetoric as well as Roman law. Sometime around 565, in his early 30s, he contracted an eye disease.When the disease was cured, Fortunatus believed it had been cured through the intercession of St. Martin of Tours, and in gratitude, he undertook a pilgrimage to Tours in order to worship at St.Martin’s shrine.

Fortunatus’s route to Tours took him through modern-day Germany, a journey that took him two years to complete. According to one legend, he repaid hospitality on his route across Europe by composing poems and songs, sometimes extemporaneously. In any case, he apparently made his reputation as a poet during this trip, which can be traced by reference to poems that he wrote in Mainz, Cologne, Metz, Rheims, and Paris before coming to Tours. After arriving in Gaul, Fortunatus became attached to the Frankish king of Austrasia, Sigebert I. Fortunatus became court poet to Sigebert, and is said to have traveled with the king throughout Gaul.

In approximately 567, Fortunatus visited Poitiers, where, in the convent of the Holy Cross, he met Queen Radegunda, who had founded the convent after leaving her husband, King Clotaire I of the Franks. Fortunatus eventually became an adviser to Radegunda and her daughter Agnes, the abbess. He served as steward and financial adviser for the convent of 200 nuns and eventually, after he was ordained, as their chaplain, until the abbess and the former queen died in 587.Some of his best-known verses come from this period: In 568 the convent was given a sacred relic—a piece of the true cross from Byzantine emperor Justin II. Fortunatus celebrated the gift by writing a series of hymns. Of these, the hymnsVexilla regis prodeunt(The royal banners forward go) andPange lingua gloriosi lauream certaminis(Sing my tongue the glorious battle) were adopted as part of the liturgy for Holy Week for the medieval church. After Radegunda’s death, Fortunatus spent some time visiting some of the most important spiritual leaders in Gaul, and was particularly befriended by GREGORY OF TOURS. It was Gregory who encouraged Fortunatus to publish his poetry, and apparently to compose a four-book, 2,243-line hexameter verse biography of St.Martin of Tours. In 599, Fortunatus was elected bishop of Poitiers, a position he kept for only a short time, for he was dead by 609, possibly earlier.

Fortunatus published 10 books of his verse during his lifetime, and one more was published posthumously. Besides his verse life of St.Martin, he published a number of other saints’ lives, including biographies of St. Radegunda as well as St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Germain of Paris. His great variety of poems includes panegyrics, elegies, verse letters to friends, patriotic poems, epigrams and occasional poems, in addition to his hymns. Most contemporary critics are unimpressed by the quality of Fortunatus’ verse, though it is the most important poetry to come out of the rather bleak period of Merovingian Gaul. But in general his poetry avoids ALLEGORY, and often gives concrete details of everyday life. Other than his surviving hymns, his works are admired chiefly for the light they throw on Christian life during that era.

■ George, Judith, ed. and trans.Venantius Fortunatus: Personal and Political Poems. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995.

■ ———.Venantius Fortunatus: A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

■ Raby, Frederic James Edward.A History of Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages. 2nd ed.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957.