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E05421: Venantius Fortunatus, in his Miracles of Hilary, tells how a burning candle which fell on the cloth covering the tomb in Poitiers of *Hilary (bishop of Poitiers, ob. 367, S00183) did not damage it. Written in Latin in Poitiers (western Gaul), 567/568.

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posted on 2018-05-13, 00:00 authored by kwojtalik
Venantius Fortunatus, Miracles of Hilary (Libri de virtutibus sancti Hilarii) 12 (34-36)

Summary:

The candle that was burning over the tomb of Hilary fell over. It blazed up where it fell on top of the cloth (pallium) over the tomb but without leaving any mark.

Text: Krusch 1885, 11. Summary: Katarzyna Wojtalik.

History

Evidence ID

E05421

Saint Name

Hilarius/Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, ob. 367 : S00183

Type of Evidence

Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles

Language

  • Latin

Evidence not before

567

Evidence not after

568

Activity not before

500

Activity not after

567

Place of Evidence - Region

Gaul and Frankish kingdoms

Place of Evidence - City, village, etc

Poitiers

Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)

Poitiers Tours Tours Toronica urbs Prisciniacensim vicus Pressigny Turonorum civitas Ceratensis vicus Céré

Major author/Major anonymous work

Venantius Fortunatus

Cult activities - Places

Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave

Cult Activities - Miracles

Miracle after death Power over objects Miraculous protection - of church and church property

Cult Activities - Cult Related Objects

Oil lamps/candles

Source

Venantius Fortunatus was born in northern Italy, near Treviso, and educated in Ravenna. In the early 560s he crossed the Alps into Merovingian Gaul, where he spent the rest of his life, making his living primarily through writing Latin poetry for the aristocracy of northern Gaul, both secular and ecclesiastical. His first datable commission in Gaul is a poem to celebrate the wedding in 566 of the Austrasian royal couple, Sigibert and Brunhild. His principal patrons were Radegund and Agnes, the royal founder and the first abbess of the monastery of the Holy Cross at Poitiers, Gregory, the historian and bishop of Tours, Leontius, bishop of Bordeaux, and Felix, bishop of Nantes, but he also wrote poems for several kings and for many other members of the aristocracy. In addition to occasional poems for his patrons, Fortunatus wrote a four-book epic poem about Martin of Tours, and several works of prose and verse hagiography. The latter part of his life was spent in Poitiers, and, probably in the 590s, he became bishop of the city; he is presumed to have died early in the 7th century. Fortunatus' Miracles of Hilary (Liber de virtutibus sancti Hilarii) consists of thirteen very short chapters describing only nine miracles. The work is a complement to his Life of Hilary (see E06713). Both the Miracles and the Life are dedicated to Pascentius, bishop of Poitiers, which enables us to date their composition with some precision to 567/568, since Fortunatus almost certainly arrived in Poitiers in 567, while Pascentius died, and was succeeded as bishop by Meroveus, in 568. Gregory of Tours used the Life and Miracles, in Glory of the Confessors 2 (see E02452) and Histories 2.37 (see E02032).

Bibliography

Edition: Krusch, B., Venanti Honori Clementiani Fortunati presbyteri Italici Opera pedestria (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi 4.2; Berolini: Apud Weidmannos, 1885). Translation: Van Dam, R., Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

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    Evidence -  The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity

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