Wheaton's Venantius Fortunatus differs from the man who is portrayed in many modern studies of the Merovingian period. In those he is ‘the Italian poet’ who won success in the Austrasian court circle and whose Latin poetry provides many glimpses of Merovingian society. He is also the friend and protegé of Gregory of Tours, and the ‘prurient male hagiographer’ who has been credited with the coining of the term tortrix to describe Queen Radegund, founder of the convent of Sainte-Croix in Poitiers, in her extremes of ascetic practice.
Certainly, the poems and Vita Radegundis, as well as Fortunatus’ Vita sancti Martini, are very well known and have been thoroughly quarried for portraits of individuals, descriptions of buildings and his liturgical hymns (such as Pange lingua and Vexilla regis prodeunt). Wheaton convincingly exposes another important aspect of Fortunatus’ career and writings. In focusing on Fortunatus’ contributions to the elucidation of Christian doctrine, whose composition was not necessarily confined to the period after 592 when Fortunatus held the bishopric of Poitiers, Wheaton presents a strong argument for Fortunatus’ role in the transmission of Christian doctrine in Frankish Gaul. He makes an interesting case for the degree to which Fortunatus shaped it as well, though the evidence for the reception of Fortunatus’ ideas appears to be rather meagre. Wheaton's principal focus is on texts in the final two books of the eleven-book collection of Fortunatus’ Carmina, probably published posthumously. Particular attention is paid to the sermons which present the commentaries on the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's Prayer. Wheaton acknowledges that Fortunatus made heavy use of Rufinus in particular, but shows that he offered nevertheless his own emphases and presentation of Scripture, and that Venantius also drew on Gallic sources and particular elements important at a local level. This in itself is an eloquent indication of the degree to which this rather secular poet from Istria, educated primarily in Ravenna, had become thoroughly integrated into the ecclesiastical community in Gaul.
A convincing case is made for Fortunatus’ authorship of the strong statement of Chalcedonian orthodoxy known as the In laudem sanctae Mariae. An appendix reproduces Reydellet's edition of In laudem sanctae Mariae, but adds an English translation and valuable commentary on the range of sources on which Fortunatus drew. These suggest how much Venantius may have been ‘drawing on a pan-Mediterranean current of Marian veneration’, but Wheaton underestimates, or is unfamiliar with, the considerable evidence for Marian devotion in both Italy and Gaul, especially in the aftermath of the Council of Ephesus.
Wheaton elucidates how these texts enable the ‘ferociously Augustinian’ Fortunatus to be placed in the context of Gallic discussions of free will and grace and the ‘semi-Pelagian’ controversy, as well as the Christological dispute known as the ‘Three Chapters controversy’. For the latter, the panegyric addressed to the emperor Justin ii and the empress Sophia after the gift of a fragment of the True Cross to Queen Radegund and containing Fortunatus’ creative extrapolations of the symbolism of the cross, is a further indication that Fortunatus was ‘carefully Chalcedonian’ and Roman in all his writings.
Other recent work published both before and since Wheaton revised his 2018 PhD thesis for publication, not least on the reception of the conciliar canons and papal letters and ‘decretals’ in Gaul by, for example, Geoffrey Dunn, Bronwen Neil and Michael Eber, has greatly enhanced our understanding of the knowledge and range of theological opinion as well as doctrinal expertise of the Gallo-Frankish episcopate and clergy. Wheaton's study is a useful addition to this growing body of material. It also provides a basis for further exploration of the impact of Fortunatus’ doctrinal expositions in the Carolingian world in the late eighth and ninth centuries. The preservation of the eleven books of the carmina in a manuscript written in the peculiar script known as ‘a-b minuscule’ (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, lat. 13048, part 2, + St Petersburg F.XIV.1) at the turn of the eighth century by, possibly, nuns who had an association with the monastery of Corbie as well as the Carolingian court, is suggestive in this respect. Fortunatus’ work, therefore, may well need further consideration within the context of Carolingian Christological discussions alongside fuller appreciation of the Gallic and Merovingian underlay for Carolingian ecclesiastical and theological developments. It is to Wheaton's credit that he has provided such an interesting exposition of Fortunatus’ theological writings as well as opening up many fruitful lines for further enquiry.
