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The Prose Lives of Venantius Fortunatus: Hagiography, Lay Piety and Pastoral Care in Sixth-Century Gaul

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The Prose Lives of Venantius Fortunatus: Hagiography, Lay Piety and Pastoral Care in Sixth-Century Gaul THE PROSE LIVES OF VENANTIUS FORTUNATUS: HAGIOGRAPHY, LAY PIETY AND PASTORAL CARE IN SIXTH-CENTURY GAUL BY KENT E. NAVALESI DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History with a concentration in Medieval Studies in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Ralph W. Mathisen, Chair Professor Danuta R. Shanzer Professor Carol Symes Professor Richard A. Layton ABSTRACT This study uses the prose hagiography of the poet Venantius Fortunatus (c.530-600/609 CE) to examine the relationship between hagiographical narrative and pastoral care in the early Merovingian kingdoms. Consisting of the lives of six bishops and the ascetic Queen Radegund, this body of work has been studied primarily as evidence for the social, religious and political power of the Gallic episcopacy and the literary promotion of saints’ cults in sixth-century Gaul. Hagiography, however, was also becoming increasingly instrumental in bishops’ religious instruction of the laity and in the laity’s own efforts to achieve salvation. This study uses stylistic, semiotic and intertextual analysis to examine the ways these works spoke to the laity’s fundamental religious concerns, particularly in the context of their public reading in the mass. These concerns included, among others, how salvation should be conceptualized, how sin should be dealt with, how Christians should live among non-Christians, and what role should be afforded women in the spiritual life of the church. Close reading of the prose lives reveals that Fortunatus exploited the multi-valency of religious images, concepts and symbols to provide answers to these questions within an orthodox pastoral framework. Moreover, this study shows that Fortunatus made innovative use of his narratives to intervene in his own pastoral voice. In so doing, this analysis also explores an under-appreciated side of the poet’s career, as a provider of pastoral care for a wide public. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been possible without the support of many friends, family members, and mentors. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor, Ralph Mathisen, for his invaluable guidance in the research and writing process, and for his unfailing encouragement in all of my professional endeavors. Secondly, I want to thank my truly exceptional committee members, each of whom made a unique contribution to this project. Over the years Danuta Shanzer has spent many patient hours helping this historian improve his translation skills and mentoring him in the ways of philology. My conversations with Carol Symes have informed much of my development as a researcher; from her I have learned the importance of centering the experiences of historical people and of not giving up on a line of inquiry too hastily. Rick Layton’s course on the ancient and medieval reception of Genesis was an early inspiration to pursue a project dealing with literary analysis. I also want to express my longstanding gratitude to Dr. Timothy Graham, who first introduced me to the study of ancient Christianity and supervised my first research projects at the University of New Mexico. Even though I was an undergraduate, he treated me like one of his graduate students, even giving me the rare opportunity to present my research in professional conferences. I will never forget the immense kindness, professionalism and good humor that he has brought to my intellectual life. I want to thank my loving family: my parents, April and Kent Sr., and my brother, Nick. Their unconditional love and support have sustained me in countless ways through the travails of graduate school. A great deal of my accomplishment in this work is owed to the sacrifices they have made to support my education throughout my life. iii This dissertation was also facilitated by staff members at the University of Illinois who work tirelessly every day to support graduate researchers. I want to recognize Shannon Croft, Office Administrator in the Department of History, who has spared me many a bureaucratic headache through the years. I also want to thank Dr. David Anthony Morris and Stuart Lee Albert at the University Library, who on multiple occasions went above and beyond the call of duty to acquire needed resources. Finally, and above all, I cannot begin to express my unfailing gratitude to my wife, Sahar Alameh, my true love and companion. Her love, humor and intellect are a daily inspiration in work and in life. iv I dedicate my dissertation work to my parents, April and Kent Navalesi. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................................... vii INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1 THE STYLE OF THE FORTUNATAN PROSE LIVES ..................................... 36 CHAPTER 2 FORTUNATUS’ SOTERIOLOGY IN THE PROSE LIVES ............................... 80 CHAPTER 3 RELIGIOUS OUTSIDERS IN THE PROSE LIVES ........................................ 130 CHAPTER 4 WOMEN, GENDER AND LAY PIETY ............................................................. 172 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 219 APPENDIX A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF FORTUNATUS’ SAINTS ...................... 222 APPENDIX B MANUSCRIPTS OF THE PROSE LIVES ...................................................... 234 APPENDIX C PLOT SYNOPSES OF THE PROSE LIVES ................................................... 240 APPENDIX D THE DATE OF THE VITA ALBINI .................................................................. 274 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 277 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AASS Acta sanctorum ACW Ancient Christian Writers (New York: Paulist Press) BHL Bibliotheca hagiographica Latina (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1898-1901) CCL Corpus christianorum, series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols) Cod.Theod. Codex Theodosianus, ed. Theodor Mommsen (Hildesheim: Weidman, 1990) CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna and Berlin) DPSH De probatis sanctorum historiis, ed. Laurentius Surius (Cologne, 1570-1605) FC Fathers of the Church (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press) LCL Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press) MGH Monumenta Germaniae historica MGH AA Monumenta Germaniae historica, Auctores antiquissimi (Berlin: Weidmanns, 1877-1919) MGH Capit. Monumenta Germaniae historica, Capitularia regum Francorum (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1883-1897) MGH Epist. Monumenta Germaniae historica, Epistolae merowingici et karolini aevi (Berlin: Weidmanns, 1881-2018) MGH LNG Monumenta Germaniae historica, Leges nationum Germanicarum (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1902-1926) MGH SRM Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores rerum merovingicarum (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1894- 1951) vii PCBE Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire (Rome: École Française de Rome; and Paris: Association des amis du Centre d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance) PG Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris) PL Patrologia Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris) PLRE The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971-1992) SC Sources Chrétiennes (Paris: Éditions du Cerf) viii INTRODUCTION Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus has been known to modern historians primarily for his large body of poetry. Consisting of over three hundred poems, this collection gives a glimpse into the networks of patronage in which the sixth-century Gallic clergy and nobility participated, and it informs us on the transition from the classical culture of the later Roman Empire to the exclusively Christian culture of the early Middle Ages. Indeed, to historians of the early Merovingian period, Fortunatus’ poetry has proven indispensable, providing nearly one third of all written evidence surviving from sixth-century Gaul.1 Within two hundred years of Fortunatus’ death, however, Paul the Deacon remembered the poet in his Historia Langobardorum not for his grand panegyrics for Merovingian kings and bishops but for his devotion to St. Martin and his career as a hagiographer. To Paul, the most significant turning-point in Fortunatus’ life, and his reason for migrating from Italy to Gaul, was Martin’s miraculous healing of an eye ailment in the church of the apostles Paul and John in Ravenna: “For this reason Fortunatus adored the blessed Martin so much that he abandoned his country a little before the Langobards invaded Italy, and set out for the sepulcher of that blessed man at Tours.” Paul viewed Fortunatus’ ensuing literary career as a natural outgrowth of this saintly devotion, leaving much of his voluminous poetic output as an afterthought in his biographical sketch: 1 See Brian Brennan, “Bishop and Community in the Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus” (PhD diss., Marcquarie University, 1983); M.H. Hoeflich, “Between Gothia and Romania: The Image of the King in the Poetry of Venantius Fortunatus,” Res publica litterarum 5 (1982), 123-136; Richard Koebner, Venantius Fortunatus: Seine Persönlichkeit und seine Stellung in der geistigen Kultur des Merowinger-Reiches (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1915); Luce Piétri, “Venance Fortunat
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