THIS BOOK HAS examined the transmission and adaptation of Roman ideas of friendship and patronage in Merovingian Gaul through the lens of the poetry of Venantius Fortunatus, demonstrating how the combination of Roman and Christian language and ideas about social relationships led to new ways of making and maintaining these relationships. In contrast to the fractured and violent world of sixth century Gaul, the poet weaves a narrative of connections which stretched across distances, overcame absences, and proved mutually beneficial for those involved. Fortunatus’ poems and letters to bishops, kings, queens, nuns, and aristocrats thus reveal the social world of his age and sharpen our picture of Merovingian society and its debt to classical culture.

The works of Fortunatus have often been cited as a footnote to the Histories of his friend and patron Bishop Gregory of Tours. Gregory and Fortunatus were closely connected by bonds of patronage and friendship. Gregory did not include Fortunatus as a character in his narrative, and made reference to him only as a hagiographer; whereas the bishop’s presence looms large in Fortunatus’ work. As explored in Chapter 1, Fortunatus wrote regularly for Gregory as a patron and a friend, sending him greetings and thanks; asking for his services as a patron, including seeking the bishop’s help for others besides himself; executing literary commissions for him; and writing on his behalf and in his interests.

From a historian’s perspective, they share a number of commonalities. Both men carried out complex literary projects unique in their location and century, and both men refer to letters, poems, and histories which no longer survive. In addition to the losses of sixth-century literature, it is worth noting the gap that comes after Fortunatus: not until Aldhelm and Eugenius of Toledo in the seventh century did another western Latin writer produce a substantial poetic corpus. The immense productivity of both men is a sign of how much we have lost.

In their surviving works, Fortunatus and Gregory provide an informative picture of Merovingian social and political history, although they do so with different emphases. Fortunatus emphasized the united nature of Merovingian society through his focus on the role of bishops within a chain of patronage which stretched between heaven and earth.