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Deathless Marriage and Spiritual Fecundity in Venantius Fortunatus's De Virginitate
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
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The Latin poet Venantius Fortunatus (ca. 530–600) is known today for his Holy Cross hymns, for the classicizing epithalamium that he wrote for the wedding of the Frankish king Sigibert, and for his panegyrics of the royal and powerful in Merovingian society. Yet despite the attention that has been lavished on Fortunatus's other major works, his ambitious four hundred line poem De Virginitate (8.3) has been noticeably neglected, perhaps because of its subject matter. A highly original work nevertheless, this poem was written in the late 560s for his patroness, the royal nun Radegund. Most probably, it was recited by the poet at the installation of Radegund's “spiritual daughter” Agnes as abbess of the Convent of the Holy Cross, which Radegund had founded at Poitiers. It is a work equal in importance to Fortunatus's episcopal panegyrics and other ceremonial poems for church occasions.
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References
1 The following works will be referred to in abbreviated form: CG = Concilia Galliae 2, ed. Carlo deClercq, CCL 148A (Turnhout, 1963); GC = Gregory of Tours Gloria Confessorum, ed. Bruno Krusch MGH, SRM 1.2 (Hannover, 1885); LH = Gregory of Tours Libri Historiarum, ed. Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison, MGH, SRM 1, 2nd. ed. (Hannover, 1951); VP = Gregory of Tours Liber Vitae Patrum, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH, SRM 1.2 (Hannover, 1885); VR = Venantius Fortunatus and Baudonivia Vita Radegundis, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH, SRM 2 (Hannover, 1888). All citations of the carmina of Venantius Fortunatus are from Friedrich Leo, ed. Opera Poetica, MGH, AA 4.1 (Berlin, 1881). Poems in the body of the text are cited by book, poem, and line number as they appear in Leo's edition. Append. refers to the appendix in Leo's edition.Google Scholar
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48 Jerome Ep. 54.14: “Redime virgines, quas in cubiculum salvatoris inducas, suscipe viduas, quas inter virginum lilia et martyrum rosas quasi quasdam violas misceas; pro corona spinea, in qua mundi Christus delicta portavit, talia serta compone.”Google Scholar
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50 LH 6.29: “Quibus ambolantibus, pervenerunt ad fontem magnum, cuius aquae tamquam aurum splendebant, herbae vero in modum diversarum gemmarum vernante luce radiabant.”Google Scholar
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55 Jerome Ep. 22.21.Google Scholar
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57 Aristotle Historia Animalium 553a. 16–25.Google Scholar
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71 Royal women in the convent are mentioned by Gregory of Tours (GC 104; LH 9.39; 10.15). Caesarius (Vereor [Letter to Nuns], 8 ed. de Vogüé and Courreau, 326–28) had emphasized the regal reward that awaits the virgin in the kingdom of heaven.Google Scholar
72 Max Bonnet (Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours [Paris, 1890], 707 n.2) doubted that these were really Gregory's own words. Giselle de Nie (Views from a Many-Windowed Tower. Studies of Imagination in the Works of Gregory of Tours [Amsterdam, 1987], 126–27) suggests the description may come from one of the nuns, or from Fortunatus himself, whose poems they resemble.Google Scholar
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75 Fortunatus (VR 3): “Subdita semper deo, sectans monita sacerdotum, plus participata Christo, quam sociata coniugio.”Google Scholar
76 LH 9.39–43; 10.15–17. The revolt of the nuns is analyzed in detail by Georg Scheibelreiter, “Königstochter im Kloster. Radegund (ob. 587) und der Nonnenaufstand von Poitiers (589),” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 87 (1979): 1–37.Google Scholar
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79 Klingshirn, “Caesarius’ Monastery” (n. 27 above), 479.Google Scholar
80 See Meyer, Gelegenheitsdichter, 27, 108–13, and George (Venantius Fortunatus [n. 1 above], 209–11), who notes the preponderance of “the more public and formal poems about Radegund and the Convent of the Holy Cross” in book 8, but strangely sees more of a memorial purpose in the later publication in book 11 of the more intimate personal poetry that Fortunatus had written for his patronesses.Google Scholar
81 Meyer (Gelegenheitsdicter, 27) suggested that Fortunatus deliberately excluded his more personal poems for Radegund and Agnes from the collection of book 8, putting them aside for a more favorable time. Meyer believed that these other poems were found by Fortunatus's friends only after his death and “published” at that time in book 11 and in what we know as the appendix to his works.Google Scholar
82 LH 9.41.Google Scholar
83 LH 9.40.Google Scholar
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