Saint Venantius Fortunatus or
Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (c. 530-c. 600/609) was a
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
poetPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
and
hymnA hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word hymn derives from Greek , "a song of praise"...
odist, and a
BishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
of the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
.
Venantius Fortunatus was born in northern
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
somewhere between
ValdobbiadeneValdobbiadene is a town in the province of Treviso, Veneto, Italy. It is located at around . Valdobbiadene is a picturesque wine growing area. Just below the Alpine areas of Veneto, it provides a climate for cool varieties of grape. This area is the home of ProseccoConegliano-Valdobbiadene a...
, Ceneda, and
TrevisoTreviso is a city in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 82,206 inhabitants : some 3,000 live within the Venetian walls or in the historical and monumental center, some 80,000 live in the urban center proper, while the city hinterland...
. He grew up during the Byzantine reconquest of Italy and was educated at
RavennaRavenna is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. The city is inland, but is connected to the Adriatic Sea by a canal. Ravenna was the capital of the Western Roman Empire till 476. It was later the capital ofKingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Exarchate of Ravenna till 751...
. His later work shows familiarity not only with classical poets such as
VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the Aeneid—although several minor poems are also attributed to him.The son of a farmer, Virgil came to be...
,
HoraceThis article is about the Roman poet Horace. For other uses, see Horace .Quintus Horatius Flaccus, , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:Born in the small town of Venusia in the border region between Apulia and Lucania...
,
OvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who wrote about love, seduction, and mythological transformation....
,
StatiusPublius Papinius Statius was a Roman poet of the Silver Age of Latin literature, born in Naples, Italy. Besides his poetry, he is best known for his appearance as a major character in the Purgatory section of Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy.-Life:He was born to a family of Graeco-Campanian...
, and
MartialMarcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
, but also with Christian poets, including
AratorArator was a sixth century Christian poet from Liguria in northwestern Italy. His best known work, De Actibus Apostolorum, is a verse history of the Apostles.-Biography:...
,
ClaudianClaudian was a Roman poet, who worked for Emperor Honorius and the latter's general Stilicho.A Greek-speaking citizen of Alexandria, Claudian arrived in Rome before 395, and made his mark with a eulogy of his two young patrons, Probinus and Olybrius, thereby becoming court poet...
, and
SeduliusCoelius Sedulius, was a Christian poet of the first half of the 5th century. He is termed a presbyter by Isidore of Seville and in the Gelasian decree....
.
Fortunatus eventually migrated through Germany to Gaul in the mid-560s, probably with the specific intention of becoming a poet in the Merovingian court.
Saint Venantius Fortunatus or
Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (c. 530-c. 600/609) was a
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
poetPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
and
hymnA hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word hymn derives from Greek , "a song of praise"...
odist, and a
BishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
of the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
.
Life
Venantius Fortunatus was born in northern
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
somewhere between
ValdobbiadeneValdobbiadene is a town in the province of Treviso, Veneto, Italy. It is located at around . Valdobbiadene is a picturesque wine growing area. Just below the Alpine areas of Veneto, it provides a climate for cool varieties of grape. This area is the home of ProseccoConegliano-Valdobbiadene a...
, Ceneda, and
TrevisoTreviso is a city in Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 82,206 inhabitants : some 3,000 live within the Venetian walls or in the historical and monumental center, some 80,000 live in the urban center proper, while the city hinterland...
. He grew up during the Byzantine reconquest of Italy and was educated at
RavennaRavenna is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. The city is inland, but is connected to the Adriatic Sea by a canal. Ravenna was the capital of the Western Roman Empire till 476. It was later the capital ofKingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Exarchate of Ravenna till 751...
. His later work shows familiarity not only with classical poets such as
VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the Aeneid—although several minor poems are also attributed to him.The son of a farmer, Virgil came to be...
,
HoraceThis article is about the Roman poet Horace. For other uses, see Horace .Quintus Horatius Flaccus, , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:Born in the small town of Venusia in the border region between Apulia and Lucania...
,
OvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who wrote about love, seduction, and mythological transformation....
,
StatiusPublius Papinius Statius was a Roman poet of the Silver Age of Latin literature, born in Naples, Italy. Besides his poetry, he is best known for his appearance as a major character in the Purgatory section of Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy.-Life:He was born to a family of Graeco-Campanian...
, and
MartialMarcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
, but also with Christian poets, including
AratorArator was a sixth century Christian poet from Liguria in northwestern Italy. His best known work, De Actibus Apostolorum, is a verse history of the Apostles.-Biography:...
,
ClaudianClaudian was a Roman poet, who worked for Emperor Honorius and the latter's general Stilicho.A Greek-speaking citizen of Alexandria, Claudian arrived in Rome before 395, and made his mark with a eulogy of his two young patrons, Probinus and Olybrius, thereby becoming court poet...
, and
SeduliusCoelius Sedulius, was a Christian poet of the first half of the 5th century. He is termed a presbyter by Isidore of Seville and in the Gelasian decree....
.
Fortunatus eventually migrated through Germany to Gaul in the mid-560s, probably with the specific intention of becoming a poet in the Merovingian court. After political circumstances impeded his court career, Fortunatus received patronage from various religious figures, including St
Gregory of ToursSaint Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman historian and bishop of Tours, which made him a leading prelate of Gaul. He was born Georgius Florentius, later adding the name Gregorius in honour of his maternal great-grandfather...
. He became bishop of Poitiers sometime before the year 600.
Works
He is best known for two poems that have become part of the
liturgyA liturgy is the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions. The word may refer to an elaborate formal ritual such as the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy and Catholic Mass, or a daily activity such as the Muslim salat and Jewish services...
of the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
, the
Pange Lingua Gloriosi Proelium CertaminisPange Lingua Gloriosi Proelium Certaminis is a 6th Century Latin sequence hymn generally credited to the Christian poet Saint Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, celebrating the Passion of Christ. In the Catholic Church, the first five stanzas are used at Matins during Passiontide in the...
("Sing, O tongue, of the glorious struggle"), a hymn that later inspired St
Thomas AquinasSaint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis...
's
Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium. He also wrote
Vexilla Regis prodeuntThe "Vexilla Regis" is a Latin hymn by the Christian poet Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers. It takes its title from its opening stanza:...
("The banners of the King are lifted"), which is a
sequenceA sequence is a chant sung or recited during the Mass, before the proclamation of the Gospel. By the time of the Council of Trent there were sequences for many feasts in the Church's year....
sung at
VespersVespers is the evening prayer service in the Western Catholic, Eastern Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran liturgies of the canonical hours. The word comes from the Greek εσπερινός and the Latin vesper, meaning "evening." The term is also in limited use in some Protestant...
during
Holy WeekHoly Week in Christianity is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter...
. This poem was written in honour of a large piece of the
True CrossThe True Cross is the name for physical remnants which, by a Christian tradition, are believed to be from the actual cross upon which Jesus was crucified.According to post-Nicene historians, Socrates Scholasticus and others, the Empress Helena The True Cross is the name for physical remnants which,...
, which explains its association also with the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The relic had been sent from the
Byzantine EmperorThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
Justin IIFlavius Iustinus Augustus was Eastern Roman Emperor from 565 to 578. He was the nephew of Justinian I, and husband of Sophia, the niece of the late empress Theodora, and therefore member of the Justinian Dynasty...
to Queen Radegunde of the
FranksThe Franks or Frankish people were a West Germanic tribal confederation first attested in the 3rd century as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul...
, who after her husband Chlotar I's death had founded a
monasteryMonastery , a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer Monastery (plural: monasteries), a term derived from the Greek word μοναστήριον, neut. of μοναστήριος - monasterios...
in
AquitaineAquitaine , archaic Guyenne/Guienne , is one of the 26 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. In the Middle Ages it was a kingdom and later a duchy, with boundaries considerably larger...
. The Municipal Library in Poitiers houses an eleventh century manuscript on the life of Radegunde, copied from a sixth century account by Fortunatus.
Venantius Fortunatus wrote
Vita S. Martini as well as eleven surviving books of poetry in Latin in a diverse group of genres including
epitaphAn epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial...
s,
panegyricA panegyric is a formal public speech, or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing, a generally highly studied and discriminating eulogy, not expected to be critical. It is derived from the Greek πανηγυρικός meaning "a speech fit for a general assembly"...
s, georgics, consolations, and religious poems. His verse is important in the development of later
Latin literatureLatin literature, the body of written works in the Latin language, remains an enduring legacy of the culture of ancient Rome. The Romans produced many works of poetry, comedy, tragedy, satire, history, and rhetoric, drawing heavily on the traditions of other cultures and particularly on the more...
, largely because he wrote at a time when Latin
prosodyIn poetry, the meter is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse meter, or a certain set of meters alternating in a particular order. Prosody is a more general linguistic term, that includes poetical meter but also the rhythmic aspects of...
was moving away from the quantitative verse of
classical LatinClassical Latin in simplest terms is the sociolinguistic register of the Latin language regarded by the enfranchised and empowered populations of the late Roman republic and the Roman empire as good Latin. Most writers during this time made use of it...
towards the accentual meters of
medieval LatinMedieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...
. His style sometimes suggests the influence of
Hiberno-LatinHiberno-Latin, also called Hisperic Latin, was a learned sort of Latin literature created and spread by Irish monks during the period from the sixth century to the tenth century.-Vocabulary and Influence:...
, in learned
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
coinages that occasionally appear in his poems. He also wrote a verse
hagiographyHagiography is the study of saints. A hagiography, from the Greek and , refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of ecclesiastical and secular leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though...
of St
Martin of ToursSaint Martin of Tours , was a Bishop of Tours whose shrine became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela...
and a hagiographic life of his patron Queen Radegunde.
Feast Day
Fortunatus is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, commemorated on December 14, primarily in the diocese of Poitiers and certain churches of the
VenetoVeneto , is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 4.8 million, and its capital is Venice....
.
Further reading
- Brennan, B. “The career of Venantius Fortunatus” Traditio, Vol 41 (1985), 49-78.
- George, J. Venantius Fortunatus: Personal and Political Poems. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995.
- George, J. Venantius Fortunatus: A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
- Reydellet, M. Venance Fortunat, Poèmes, 3 vols., Collection Budé
The Collection Budé, or the Collection des Universités de France, is a series of books comprising the Greek and Latin classics up to the middle of the 6th century...
, 1994-2004.
- Roberts, Michael. The Humblest Sparrow: The Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan, 2009.
External links