Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Fortunatus, bp. of Poictiers
Fortunatus (17), Venantius Honorius Clementianus, bp. of Poictiers, and
the last representative of Latin poetry in Gaul, was born c. 530 at Ceneta,
the modern Ceneda, near Tarvisium (Treviso) (Vit. Sanct. Martin. lib. iv.
668). He seems to have resided at an early age at Aquileia, where he came under
the influence of one Paulus, who was instrumental in his conversion. Paulus Diaconus
(Hist. Langobard. lib. ii. 23) relates that he studied grammar, rhetoric,
and poetry at Ravenna. In gratitude for his recovery from blindness, he set out
on a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Martin of Tours c. 565. Crossing the Alps
and passing into Austrasia, he visited king Siegbert, for whom he composed an epithalamium
on his marriage with Brunehault, couched in terms of extravagant flattery. Euphronius
bp. of Tours and Fortunatus became close friends (Miscell. iii. 1-3). After
completing his pilgrimage, he continued to travel in Gaul, because of the disturbed
state of Italy, due to the incursions of the Lombards, but finding an additional
inducement in the society of Rhadegund of Poictiers, for whom he conceived a Platonic
attachment. She was the daughter of Bertharius, king of the Thuringians, and had
been espoused against her will to Lothair I., king of Neustria, but had separated
from him, and retired in 550 to Poictiers, where she founded the convent of St.
Croix, more for literary than for religious seclusion, appointing her own domestic
Agnes the first abbess. At what date Fortunatus visited Poictiers is uncertain,
but he was induced to become chaplain and almoner to the convent. Rhadegund employed
her poet-chaplain in correspondence with the prelates of Gaul, and despatched him
from time to time on delicate missions. He thus became intimate with Gregory of
Tours, Syagrius of Autun, Felix of Nantes, Germanus of Paris, Avitus of Clermont,
and many others, to whom his poems are addressed. He also composed Lives of the
saints, theological treatises, and hymns, including the famous Vexilla Regis,
composed for a religious ceremony at Poictiers. The Pange Lingua, though
generally ascribed to his pen, was more probably composed, as Sirmond has shown
(in Notis ad Epist. Sidon. Apollin. lib. iii. Ep. 4.), by Claudianus
Mamertus. Fortunatus was ordained priest, and, subsequently to the death of Rhadegund
in 597, succeeded Plato in the bishopric of Poictiers; but died early in the 7th
cent.
His works comprise: (1) Eleven Books of Miscellanies, chiefly in elegiac verse, interesting for the light they throw upon the manners of the time and the history of art (Miscell. i. 12; iii. 13), but as literature all but worthless.
(2) The Life of St. Martin of Tours in four books, consisting of 2,245 hexameter lines, hastily composed, and little more than a metrical version of Severus Sulpicius's incomparably better prose.
(3) An elegiac poem in three cantos, written in the character, and evidently under the inspiration, of Rhadegund. The first, de Excidio Thuringiae, is dedicated to her cousin Amalfred (or Hermanfred); the second is a panegyric of Justin II. and his empress Sophia, who had presented Rhadegund with a piece of the true cross.
(4) A collection of 150 elegiac verses addressed to Rhadegund and Agnes, and a short epigram ad Theuchildem.
(5) The Lives of eleven saints—Hilary of Poitiers, Germain of Paris, Aubin of Angers, Paternus of Avranches, Rhadegund of Poictiers, Amant of Rodez, Médard of Noyon, Remy of Rheims, Lubin of Chartres, Mauril of Angers, and Marcel of Paris—but the first book of the Life of Hilary and the Lives of the three last named saints ought probably to be attributed to another Fortunatus. To these must be added an account of the martyrdom at Paris of St. Denys, St. Rusticus, and St. Eleutherius.
His style is pedantic, his taste bad, his grammar and prosody seldom correct for many lines together, but two of his longer poems display a simplicity and pathos foreign to his usual style—viz. that on the marriage of Galesuintha, sister of Brunehaut, with Chilperic, and his Elegy upon the Fall of Thuringia.
The latest and best ed. of his works is by Leo and Krusch (Berlin, 1881-1885). A good earlier ed. by Luchi is reprinted in Migne's Patr. Lat. lxxxviii. Augustin Thierry, Récits mérovingiens, t. ii. Recit. vi.; and Ampère, Hist. lit. de la France, t. ii. c. 13.
[E.M.Y.]