Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunat, known generally just as Fortunat, lived from about 530 to 600 AD. He was originally from Treviso, in northern Italy, but fled the city ahead of an invasion by the Goths. He is known to us because he developed a skill at poetry, which spilled over into church office, and the celebration of food – not your standard combination today, let alone the early Middle Ages. He traveled in exile to young France, to the courts of competing Merovingian Kings, in Metz and Paris, and eventually made his way to Poitiers, where he stayed. Fortunatus was one of the most prominent poets of the early Middle Ages, and had many contracts, commissions and correspondences with kings, bishops and noblemen and women from the time he arrived in Gaul until his death. He was a master wordsmith and because of his promotion of the church and Merovingian royalty, he remained in good stead with most of his patrons. His works have been set to music, and are used extensively in the Episcopalian hymnal. His single most famous piece, written in honor of Saint Radegonde’s having obtained a piece of the Holy Cross from the Emperor Justinian, is Vexilla Regis, a hymn still in the Catholic Holy Week liturgy today. The composer Anton Bruckner wrote a motet based on this poem.
Poitiers became Fortunat’s adopted home, it appears, due to his admiration for and friendship with Sainte Radegonde, and the Abbess Agnes of the Monastery of Sainte-Croix. They too, like Fortunat, were exiles in Poitiers: Radegonde, a Princess of Thuringia, in central Germany, taken by force to become the Queen of Frankish King Chlotar (or Clotaire) and who escaped here, and Agnes, Radegonde’s former lady-in-waiting at the court (for more on the remarkable story of Radegonde, see “From Thuringia with Love”). Radegonde, in 557, had founded the first-ever monastery for women in France, which would become a haven for daughters of royalty and nobility for over 1,000 years, but declined the honor of the position of Abbess. On Fortunat’s arrival in Poitiers, the three seem to have become fast friends. They spend a great deal of time together, Fortunat often writing poems to the pair and/or about them. After Radegonde’s death in 587 he wrote her life story, which remains in existence through later copied (one of them, from the 11th century, housed in Poitiers’ municipal library). Food seemed to have been a way for Radegonde and Agnes to show Fortunat their affection. In return, he would write poems praising them and their cooking. Eventually he became the Bishop of Poitiers, and died here. Though never formally canonized, Fortunat became venerated as a saint in France and Italy. Food was also central to his memory: Saint Fortunat is now known in France as the patron saint of male chefs and gourmands, while his friend Sainte Radegonde is known in France as the patron saint of female chefs. Thank you to Stephane Henaut and Jeni Mitchell’s A Bite-Sized History of France for having recently revived this story.
Venantius Fortunat is remembered in Poitiers in part by the Rue Saint-Fortunat, which runs from the Grand’ Rue towards the former Abbey of Sainte-Croix and the church of Sainte Radegonde, appropriately. He may have lived on this street, at #11. There is also, again appropriately, a Restaurant Saint-Fortunat in the Poitiers suburbs. Presumably with a male chef.
