¹ The following works will be referred to in abbreviated form: CG = Concilia Galliae 2, ed. Carlo deClercq, CCL 148A (Turnhout, 1963); GC = Gregory of Tours Gloria Confessorum, ed. Bruno Krusch MGH, SRM 1.2 (Hannover, 1885); LH = Gregory of Tours Libri Historiarum, ed. Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison, MGH, SRM 1, 2nd. ed. (Hannover, 1951); VP = Gregory of Tours Liber Vitae Patrum, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH, SRM 1.2 (Hannover, 1885); VR = Venantius Fortunatus and Baudonivia Vita Radegundis, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH, SRM 2 (Hannover, 1888). All citations of the carmina of Venantius Fortunatus are from Friedrich Leo, ed. Opera Poetica, MGH, AA 4.1 (Berlin, 1881). Poems in the body of the text are cited by book, poem, and line number as they appear in Leo's edition. Append. refers to the appendix in Leo's edition.Google Scholar

For studies of the poet, see Judith George, Venantius Fortunatus. A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul (Oxford, 1992); Brian Brennan, “The Career of Venantius Fortunatus,” Traditio 41 (1985): 49–78; Dominique Tardi, Fortunat, Étude sur le dernier représentant de la poésie latine dans la Gaule Mérovingienne (Paris, 1927); Richard Koebner, Venantius Fortunatus: seine Persönlichkeit und seine Stellung in der geistigen Kultur des Merowinger-Reiches, in Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance, 22 (Leipzig, 1915); Wilhelm Meyer, Der Gelegenheitsdichter Venantius Fortunatus, Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, N.F. 4.5 (Berlin, 1901); Peter Dronke, Medieval Latin and the Rise of the European Love Lyric, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Oxford, 1968); Reto Bezzola, Les Origines et la Formation de la Littérature Courtoise en Occident (500–1200), vol. 1 (Paris, 1944).Google Scholar

² “Radegundis,” in Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, ed. John Robert Martindale et al., 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1992), 3B: 1072–74; René Aigrain, Sainte Radegonde vers 520–587, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1924); Etienne Delaruelle, “Sainte Radegonde, son type de sainteté et la chrétienté de son temps,” in Études Mérovingiennes, Actes des Journées de Poitiers, 1–3 Mai 1952 (Paris, 1953), 65–74; Brian Brennan, “St. Radegund and the Early Development of her Cult at Poitiers,” Journal of Religious History 13 (1985): 340–54; Friedrich Prinz, Frühes Mönchtum im Frankenreich (Munich, 1965), 157–60; John Michael Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church (Oxford, 1983), 55–57, 83–86; Suzanne Fonay Wemple, Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister 500 to 900 (Philadelphia, 1981), 150–52, 183–85. For the religious topography of Poitiers, see May Vieillard-Troiekouroff, Les Monuments Religieux de la Gaule d'après Les Oeuvres de Gregoire de Tours (Paris, 1976), 218–30; Dietrich Claude, Topographie und Verfassung der Städte Bourges und Poitiers bis in das 11 Jahrhundert (Lübeck-Hamburg, 1960), 27–40, 50–55.Google Scholar

³ For interpretations of the language of love and friendship employed by Fortunatus in this personal poetry for Radegund and Agnes, see Charles Nisard, Le Poète Fortunat (Paris, 1890), 180–81; Dronke, Medieval Latin, 196; and esp. Franca Consolino, “Amor spiritualis e linguaggio elegiaco nei Carmina di Venanzio Fortunato,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di lettre e filosofia ser. 3, 7/4 for 1977 (1978): 1351–68.Google Scholar

⁴ Berthichilde, to whom Fortunatus wrote verse, changed her garments to those of a religious but still lived at home. See Carm. 6. 4, esp. lines 8–9, 13–14, 17–18. Gregory of Tours (GC 16), comments that a domestic arrangement proved too distracting for the virgin Papula, who to escape her doting parents, dressed as a man and hid in a male monastery. Gregory's report on the religiosa Georgia (GC 33) reveals that she lived a hermit existence, probably well before Gregory's own time. Pelagia, like her son the abbot Aredius, lived the monastic life at her villa near Limoges; see Gregory GC 102 and LH 10.29.Google Scholar

⁵ Gregory of Tours LH 9.33; for Monegundis at Tours, see VP 19. After the death of Clovis, his queen, Clotild, “served” the basilica of Saint Martin (LH 2.43).Google Scholar

⁶ VR 5–6.Google Scholar

⁷ VR 12, 15.Google Scholar

⁸ LH 9.40. For a sympathetic assessment of Maroveus, see Robert Mineau, “Un évêque de Poitiers au VI siècle: Marovée,” Bulletin de la Sociéte des Antiquaires de l’Ouest et des Musées de Poitiers 11 (1972): 361–83.Google Scholar

⁹ Caesarius, Statuta sanctarum virginum, ed. Adalbert de Vogüé and Joël Courreau, SC 345 (Paris, 1988), 170–273. For a detailed interpretation of the rule in context, see David Hochstetler, “The Meaning of Monastic Cloister for Women According to Caesarius of Arles,” in Religion, Culture and Society in the Early Middle Ages; Studies in Honor of Richard Sullivan, ed. Thomas Noble, F. X. and Contreni, John (Kalamazoo, 1987), 27–40; Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, “Strict Active Enclosure and its Effects on the Female Monastic Experience (ca. 500–1100),” in Medieval Religious Women, vol. 1, Distant Echoes, ed. John Nichols and Lilian Shank (Kalamazoo, 1984), 51–86. The subsequent history of Radegund's convent is traced by Yvonne Labande-Mailfert et al, Histoire de l'Abbaye Sainte-Croix de Poitiers: Quatorze Siècles de Vie Monastique, Mémoires de la société des Antiquaires de l'ouest, 4me série, 19 (Poitiers, 1986).Google Scholar

¹⁰ LH 9.42.Google Scholar

¹¹ LH 9.39.Google Scholar

¹² LH 9.33; 10.12.Google Scholar

¹³ LH 9.40. Averil Cameron, “The Early Religious Policies of Justin II,” in The Orthodox Churches and the West, ed. Derek Baker, Studies in Church History, 13 (1976), 51–67; William Martin Conway, “St. Radegund's Reliquary at Poitiers,” The Antiquaries Journal 3 (1923): 1–12; Isabel Moreira, “Provisatrix optima: St. Radegund of Poitiers’ Relic Petitions to the East,” Journal of Medieval History 19 (1993): 285–305.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Carm. 3. 4.(12); 3.21.11–12; 3.22a.13–14; 5.3.14; 8.2; 9.10; 9.10.9–10.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Carm. 6.5.225–26; 9.1.127–28.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Carm. 5.1.(10); 5.2.63–64; 5.19.11–12.Google Scholar

¹⁷ LH 9.40: “Post haec, cum ponteficis sui saepius gratiam quaereret nec possit adipisci, necessitate commota, cum abbatissa sua, quam instituerat, Arelatensim urbem expetunt. De qua regulam sancti Caesarii atque Casariae beatae susceptam, reges se tuitione munierunt, scilicet quia in illum, qui pastor esse debuerat, nullam curam defensiones suae potuerant repperire.”Google Scholar

¹⁸ The consecration of deaconesses was banned because of the perceived weakness of women: Conc. Epaonense A.517 can. 21 (CG 2:29). Conc. Aurelianense A.533 can. 18 (CG, 2:101): “Placuit, ut nulli postmodum foeminae diaconalis benedictio pro conditionis huius fragilitate credatur.”Google Scholar

¹⁹ See LH 8.20, and the discusssion by Godefroid Kurth, “Le Concile de Mâcon et L’Âme des Femmes,” in his Études Franques, vol. 1 (Paris, 1919), 161–67.Google Scholar

²⁰ LH 4.26; 5.39; 6.16; 9.39. Note Wemple, Women in Frankish Society (n. 2 above), 156: “Even in this heroic age of monasticism convents served as prisons.”Google Scholar

²¹ Gregory (LH 6.16; 9.33) gives details of occasions when royal permission was given for men to abduct female religious.Google Scholar

²² Conc. Aurelianense A.549. can. 19 (CG 2:155); Conc. Turonense A.567. can 21 (CG 2:184–85).Google Scholar

²³ LH 9.39.Google Scholar

²⁴ See the divisions proposed by Meyer, Gelegenheitsdichter (n. 1 above), 111–12.Google Scholar

²⁵ LH 9.42. Note the ending of Radegund's letter: “Illud vobis in omnibus ante oculos revocantes, per ipsum, qui de cruce gloriosam virginem, suam genetricem, beato Iohanni apostolo commendavit, ut, qualiter ab illo conplectum est Domini de mandato, sic sit apud vos indigna et humilis dominis meis aeclesiae patribus et viris apostolicis quod commendo.”Google Scholar

²⁶ When Eustochium, the daughter of the ascetic Paula, embraced the religious life, Jerome pictured this as a spiritual marriage and went so far as to congratulate Paula on having become God's mother-in-law. See Jerome, Ep. 22.20: “Socrus dei esse coepisti.”Google Scholar

²⁷ Klingshirn, William E., “Caesarius’ Monastery for Women in Arles and the Composition and Function of the Vita Caesarii,” Revue Bénédictine 100 (1990): 441–81.Google Scholar

²⁸ Carm. 8.3.47–52; 81–84. The image of the wise and discriminating bee is found in Christian literature. In Athanasius Vita Antonii 3–4 (PG 26: 844–45), Antony the hermit is the “wise bee” who visited devout men, extracting from each a particular virtue. See also Basil the Great Address to Young Men 7–8 and Clement of Alexandria Stromateis 1.1. Writing to the holy widow Furia, Jerome presents Deborah as the bee: “apis nomen accepit scripturarum floribus pasta, Spiritus Sancti odore perfusa et dulces ambrosiae sucos prophetali ore conponens” (Ep. 54.17). The classical antecedents are set out by Arthur Cook, “The Bee in Greek Mythology,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 15 (1895): 1–14, and André Sauvage, “Les insectes dans la poèsie romaine,” Latomus 29 (1970): 274–87.Google Scholar

²⁹ Brown, Peter, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in the Early Church (New York, 1984), 274; John Bugge, Virginitas. Evolution of a Medieval Ideal (The Hague, 1975), 59–79; Franca Consolino, “Veni huc a Libano: La sponsa del Cantico dei Cantico come modello per le vergini negli scritti esortatori di Ambrogio,” Athenaeum, n.s. 62 (1984): 399–415; Elizabeth Clark, “The Uses of the Song of Songs: Origen and the Later Latin Fathers,” in idem, Ascetic Piety and Women's Faith: Essays on Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston, 1986), 386–427; Patricia Cox Miller, “The Blazing Body: Ascetic Desire in Jerome's Letter to Eustochium,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1 (1993): 21–45. For the later medieval tradition, Ann Matter, E., The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia, 1990); Ann Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1990).Google Scholar

³⁰ LH 9.42.Google Scholar

³¹ A most lucid treatment of the developing tradition of Jesus as the bridegroom of the soul is to be found in Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus Through The Centuries (New Haven, 1985), 122–32. Note the eroticism of Fortunatus Carm. 8.3.125–28; cf. Jerome Ep. 22.25–26.Google Scholar

³² Herde, Rosemarie, “Das Hohelied in der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters bis zum 12 Jahrhundert,” Studi Medievali 8 (1967): 957–1073, esp. 872–980.Google Scholar

³³ Origen Hom. in Canticum Canticorum 1.1. (ed. Olivier Rousseau, SC 37 bis [Paris, 1966], 70): “Haec quippe in hoc libro, fabula pariter et epithalamio, sunt personae; ex quo et gentiles sibi epithalamium vindicarunt et istius carmen assumptum est, epithalamium siquidem et canticum canticorum.”Google Scholar

³⁴ Carm. 6.1.15–22.Google Scholar

³⁵ Claudian Epithalamium de nuptiis Honorii et Mariae, Praef. 69–227; Sidonius Epithalamium de nuptiis Ruricii et Hiberiae 111–25. On the genre in late antiquity, see Camillo Morelli, “L’Epitalamio nella tarda poesia latina,” Studi italiani di Filologia Classica 18 (1910): 319–432; Michael Roberts, “The Use of Myth in Latin Epithalamia from Sidonius to Venantius Fortunatus,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 119 (1989): 321–48.Google Scholar

³⁶ Michael Roberts (The Jeweled Style. Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity [Ithaca, N. Y., 1989], 85) draws a parallel between this catalogue of saints and the procession of saints in the nave of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna.Google Scholar

³⁷ Schmidt, Wolfgang, “Ein Christlicher Heroidenbrief des sechsten Jahrhunderts,” in Studien zur Textgeschichte und Textkritik, ed. Hellfried Dahlmann and Reinhold Merkelbach (Köln, 1959), 253–63.Google Scholar

³⁸ Claudian Epithalamium de nuptis Honorii et Mariae 165–74; 282–83.Google Scholar

³⁹ Paulinus of Nola Carm. 25.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Claudian Epithalamium de nuptiis Honorii et Mariae 54–55: luxuriae Venerique vacat. pars acrior anni / exulat; aeterni patet indulgentia veris.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid., 92–96.Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid., 202–203.Google Scholar

⁴³ Statius Silvae I. ii. 19–23.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Fortunatus (Vita Martini 1.18–19) mentions Prudentius among the Christian poets, but little influence can be detected. See Bigorra, Sebastián, “Prudencio y Venancio Fortunato: influencia de un metro,” Helmantica 26 (1975): 333–37.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Prudentius Liber Cathemerinon 3.101–105: “tunc per amoena virecta iubet / frondicomis habitare locis, / ver ubi perpetuum redolet / prataque multicolora latex / quadrifluo celer amne rigat.”Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Prudentius Liber Cathemerinon 5.113–24. For a discussion of Prudentius's paradisaical imagery, see Jacques Fontaine, “Trois variations de Prudence sur le thème du Paradis,” in Forschungen zur römischen Literatur: Festschrift zum 60. Geburtsag von K. Bücher, ed. Walter Wimmel (Wiesbaden, 1970), 96–115 (reprinted in Études sur la poésie latine tardive d’Ausone à Prudence [Paris, 1980], 488–507).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Prudentius Peristephanon Liber 196–200. For a discussion of floral symbolism and the martyr cult, see John Petruccione, “The Portrait of St. Eulalia of Mérida in Prudentius’ Peristephanon 3,” Analecta Bollandiana 108 (1990): 81–104; Michael Roberts, Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: The Liber Peristephanon of Prudentius (Ann Arbor, 1993), 96–100.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Jerome Ep. 54.14: “Redime virgines, quas in cubiculum salvatoris inducas, suscipe viduas, quas inter virginum lilia et martyrum rosas quasi quasdam violas misceas; pro corona spinea, in qua mundi Christus delicta portavit, talia serta compone.”Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Carm. 3.9.1–46. Ruth Ellis Messenger, “Salve festa dies,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 78 (1947): 208–22.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ LH 6.29: “Quibus ambolantibus, pervenerunt ad fontem magnum, cuius aquae tamquam aurum splendebant, herbae vero in modum diversarum gemmarum vernante luce radiabant.”Google Scholar

⁵¹ GC 40; cf. 94.Google Scholar

⁵² VP 19, prologue.Google Scholar

⁵³ Kantorowicz, Ernst, “Oriens Augusti: Lever du Roi,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963): 135–45 (for Christ); 146–48 (for the Virgin Mary).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ In the panegyrical tradition, the fecundity of the earth and of nature was commonly associated with the emperor's good rule and in particular with his iustitia and cura; see Sabine MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1981), 218–19. At the emperor's arrival, the harvest is guaranteed and nature in sympathetic joy pays a bountiful homage to celebrate the felicitas temporum (Pan Lat. 3.15.3; 4.3.1).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Jerome Ep. 22.21.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ ibid., Ep. 22.19.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Aristotle Historia Animalium 553a. 16–25.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Vergil Georg. 4.197–202.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Fortunatus Carm. 6.1.142–43: “sic iterum natis celebretis vota parentes / et de natorum teneatis prole nepotes.” Claudian, Epithalamium de nuptiis Honorii et Mariae, 340–41: “sic uterus crescat Mariae; sic natus in ostro, / parvus Honoriades genibus considat avitis.” Sidonius Epithalamium de nuptiis Ruricii et Hiberiae, 132–33: “sint nati sintque nepotes; / cernat et in proavo sibimet quod pronepos optet.”Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Jerome Adversus Helvidium 20 (PL 23:213–14). Jerome still manages to depict marriage in a negative light despite his assertion that marriage is an honorable state. He claims that he will not mention “quomodo uterus intumescat, infans vagiat, cruciet paelex, domus cura sollicitet, et omnia quae putantur bona, mora extrema praecidat” (Ep. 22.3). See also the comments of Ambrose Exhortatio Virginitatis 1.7 (PL 16:348–50); De Virginibus 1.6–8 (PL 16:195–203).Google Scholar

⁶¹ Avitus of Vienne De consolatoria laude castitatis 163–200 (PL 59:372–73).Google Scholar

⁶² Ton. Van Eijk, H. J., “Marriage and Virginity, Death and Immortality,” in Epktasis: Mélanges offert au Cardinal Daniélou, J., ed. Jacques Fontaine and Charles Kannengiesser (Paris, 1972), 235: “the end of marriage is also the end of time and the absolute rejection of marriage is, in fact, a rejection of time.”Google Scholar

⁶³ See, for example, Jerome Ep. 22.19; Ambrose Exhortatio Virginitatis 7.42 (PL 16:348–49); De Virginibus 1.13 (PL 16:197).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ On the genre of the consolatio itself, see Charles Favez, La consolation latine chrétienne (Paris, 1949); Rudolf Kassel, Untersuchungen zur griechischen und römischen Konsolationsliteratur (Munich, 1958).Google Scholar

⁶⁵ LH 6.29.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Klingshirn, “Caesarius's Monastery” (n. 27 above), 474–80.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Caesarius Regula virginum, prologue 1: “Quae ut deo adiuuante custodire possitis, iugiter in monasterii cellula residentes, visitationem filii dei assiduis orationibus implorate, ut postea cum fiducia possitis dicere: invenimus quem quaesiuit anima nostra [cf. Song of Songs 5:6. “quaesivi, et non inveni illum”]. Et ideo vos sacras virgines et deo deditas animas rogo, quae incensis lampadibus cum secura conscientia domini praestolatis adventum, … ut cum in regno cum sanctis ac sapientibus virginibus feliciter introibitis, me cum stultis non remanere foris vestro suffragio obtineatis” (ed. Adalbert de Vogüé and Joël Courreau, 170–72).Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Baudonivia (VR 20): “Quid me desiderio accensa cum tantis lacrimis rogas, gemens requins, fusis precibus poscis, pro me tanto cruciatu affligis, qui semper tibi assisto? Tu gemma preciosa, noveris, te in diademate capitis mei primam esse gemmam.”Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Note Jerome Ep. 64.22.1: “diversis coloribus et gemmis floribusque virtutum,” many examples given at “gemma,” in ThLL 6:1757.21–56.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Caesarius Regula virginum, prologue 1: “Orantem pro me sanctimoniam vestram et inter pretiosissimas ecclesiae gemmas micantem favor divinus et praesentibus repleat bonis et dignam reddat aeternis” (ed. de Vogüé and Courreau, 172).Google Scholar

⁷¹ Royal women in the convent are mentioned by Gregory of Tours (GC 104; LH 9.39; 10.15). Caesarius (Vereor [Letter to Nuns], 8 ed. de Vogüé and Courreau, 326–28) had emphasized the regal reward that awaits the virgin in the kingdom of heaven.Google Scholar

⁷² Max Bonnet (Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours [Paris, 1890], 707 n.2) doubted that these were really Gregory's own words. Giselle de Nie (Views from a Many-Windowed Tower. Studies of Imagination in the Works of Gregory of Tours [Amsterdam, 1987], 126–27) suggests the description may come from one of the nuns, or from Fortunatus himself, whose poems they resemble.Google Scholar

⁷³ GC 104.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ GC 104: “Qui quocumque loco accedebamus, contemplantes gloriosam faciem tuam, ibi inveniebamus aurum, ibi argentum; ibi suspiciebamus florentes vineas segitesque comantes; ibi prata diversorum florum varietate vernantia. A te carpiebamus violas, tu nobis eras rosa rutilans et lilium candens. Tua nobis verba quasi sol resplendebant et quasi luna tenebris conscientiae nostrae lucidam veritatis lampadem accendebant.”Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Fortunatus (VR 3): “Subdita semper deo, sectans monita sacerdotum, plus participata Christo, quam sociata coniugio.”Google Scholar

⁷⁶ LH 9.39–43; 10.15–17. The revolt of the nuns is analyzed in detail by Georg Scheibelreiter, “Königstochter im Kloster. Radegund (ob. 587) und der Nonnenaufstand von Poitiers (589),” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 87 (1979): 1–37.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Brennan, “St. Radegund” (n. 2 above), 348–49.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Coudanne, Louise, “Baudonivie, moniale de Sainte-Croix et biographe de Sainte Radegonde,” in Études Mérovingiennes (n. 2 above), 45–49.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Klingshirn, “Caesarius’ Monastery” (n. 27 above), 479.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ See Meyer, Gelegenheitsdichter, 27, 108–13, and George (Venantius Fortunatus [n. 1 above], 209–11), who notes the preponderance of “the more public and formal poems about Radegund and the Convent of the Holy Cross” in book 8, but strangely sees more of a memorial purpose in the later publication in book 11 of the more intimate personal poetry that Fortunatus had written for his patronesses.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Meyer (Gelegenheitsdicter, 27) suggested that Fortunatus deliberately excluded his more personal poems for Radegund and Agnes from the collection of book 8, putting them aside for a more favorable time. Meyer believed that these other poems were found by Fortunatus's friends only after his death and “published” at that time in book 11 and in what we know as the appendix to his works.Google Scholar

⁸² LH 9.41.Google Scholar

⁸³ LH 9.40.Google Scholar