E02863: Gregory of Tours, in his Miracles of Martin (1.15), recounts how Venantius Fortunatus and a colleague were cured from blindness with oil from a lamp burning beneath a picture of *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050) in Ravenna (northern Italy), in c. 560. Written in Latin in Tours (north-west Gaul), 573/576.
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posted on 2017-05-29, 00:00authored bykwojtalik
Gregory of Tours, Miracles of Martin (Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi) 1.15
Sibi quoque Ravenna atque in rethorica socii sui Felicis ex oleo, quod sub imagine pictura beati Martini in cicendile ardebat, dum tetigerunt oculos, lumen reddidisse confessus est.
'Fortunatus also admitted that sight had returned to himself and to Felix, his fellow student in the school of rhetoric at Ravenna, when they touched their eyes with the oil that was burning in a lamp beneath a painting of the blessed Martin.'
Text: Krusch 1969, 147. Translation: Van Dam 1993, 215, lightly modified (de Nie 2015, 475).
History
Evidence ID
E02863
Saint Name
Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours (Gaul), ob. 397 : S00050
Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles
Language
Latin
Evidence not before
573
Evidence not after
576
Activity not before
550
Activity not after
565
Place of Evidence - Region
Italy north of Rome with Corsica and Sardinia
Place of Evidence - City, village, etc
Ravenna
Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)
Ravenna
Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardegna
Sardinia
Major author/Major anonymous work
Gregory of Tours
Cult activities - Use of Images
Other forms of veneration of an image
Cult Activities - Miracles
Miracle after death
Healing diseases and disabilities
Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Aristocrats
Cult Activities - Relics
Contact relic - oil
Touching and kissing relics
Cult Activities - Cult Related Objects
Oil lamps/candles
Source
Gregory, of a prominent Clermont family with extensive ecclesiastical connections, was bishop of Tours from 573 until his death (probably in 594). He was the most prolific hagiographer of all Late Antiquity. He wrote four books on the miracles of Martin of Tours, one on those of Julian of Brioude, and two on the miracles of other saints (the Glory of the Martyrs and Glory of the Confessors), as well as a collection of twenty short Lives of sixth-century Gallic saints (the Life of the Fathers). He also included a mass of material on saints in his long and detailed Histories, and produced two independent short works: a Latin version of the Acts of Andrew and a Latin translation of the story of The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.
Gregory's Miracles of Martin (full title Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi, 'Books of the Miracles of Saint Martin the Bishop'), consists of four books of miracles, 207 chapters in all, effected by Martin, primarily at his grave and shrine in Tours. Most of them occurred at the time of the saint's festivals, on 4 July and 11 November. Gregory tried to record the miracles in chronological order, so historians have been able to calculate quite precisely the dates of the events and miracles mentioned in the work. This fairly precise chronology has enabled scholars to determine the dates of completion of each book. There have been three main dating schemes proposed for the composition of the four books. The oldest was suggested by Monod in 1872, another by Krusch in 1885, and then one by Van Dam in 1993 (for fuller discussion, see Shaw 2015, 103-105). Their datings of the individual books do not vary substantially, and in our entries we have given only those of Van Dam. Shaw 2015 convincingly demolishes an earlier theory, that Gregory wrote the Miracles in two distinct stages: a first stage that was written during a particular period, and a second stage in the early 590s, in which Gregory revised the whole work.
Book 1, with 40 chapters, was written between 573 and 576. In the prologue, Gregory mentions that he started writing after he became bishop of Tours in August 573. Book 1 must have been completed by 576, since Venantius Fortunatus in a letter to Gregory of that year referred to it (Epistula ad Gregorium 2, prefatory letter to Fortunatus' Life of Martin, MGH Auct. ant. 4.1, p. 293).
Book 2 consists of 60 chapters. It must have been finished before November 581, because the last miracles it mentions occurred in November 580, while the first ones recorded in Book 3 happened in November 581. Using the same methodology, the completion of Book 3, which also covers 60 chapters, can be dated between 587 and July 588.
Book 4, which consists of 47 chapters, seems never to have been completed, presumably because of Gregory’s death. There are two main arguments in support of the idea that it is unfinished. Firstly, Book 4 has no conclusion and no tidy number of chapters, while each of Books 1 to 3 has these elements. Secondly, the last story recorded in Book 4 is not about Gregory himself, unlike the final stories of Books 2 and 3.
Book 1 covers miracles that occurred before Gregory’s episcopate in Tours. The next three books are a running chronicle of Martin’s miracles under Gregory’s episcopate. Some of the miracles are recorded in very summary form, while others are much more elaborately presented: because of this, it has been argued that Gregory first jotted down notes, and only subsequently gave the stories full literary treatment (which in some cases, he was never able to do).
The three completed books of the Miracles of Martin were probably released as they were completed, rather that published together. In this sense they are the exception amongst Gregory's writings, since the rest of his work was not finally completed and seems to have been unpublished at the time of his death.
For discussion of the work, see:
Krusch, B. (ed.), Gregorii episcopi Turonensis miracula et opera minora (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1,2; 2nd ed.; Hannover, 1969), 2–4.
Monod, G., Études critiques sur les sources de l’histoire mérovingienne, 1e partie (Paris, 1872), 42–45.
Shaw, R., "Chronology, Composition and Authorial Conception in the Miracula," in: A.C. Murray (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden-Boston, 2015), 102–140.
Van Dam, R., Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993), 142–146, 199.
Discussion
Venantius Fortunatus, who came to Gaul from Ravenna in the 560s, was Gregory's source for four accounts of miracles of Martin set in northern Italy: Miracles of Martin I.13-16 (E02861, E02862, E02863 and E02869).
This miracle is also mentioned in Fortunatus' Life of Martin 4.686-701 (E0XXXX), who says that this happened in the church of John and Paul in Ravenna.
Bibliography
Editions and translations:
Krusch, B. (ed.), Gregorii episcopi Turonensis miracula et opera minora (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1,2; 2nd ed.; Hannover, 1969), 134–211.
Van Dam, R. (trans.), Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993), 200–303.
de Nie, G. (ed. and trans.), Lives and Miracles: Gregory of Tours (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 39; Cambridge MA, 2015), 421–855.
Further reading:
Murray, A.C. (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden-Boston, 2015).
Shanzer, D., "So Many Saints – So Little Time ... the Libri Miraculorum of Gregory of Tours," Journal of Medieval Latin 13 (2003), 19–63.