Page 163 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

The saint as envoy: bishops’ Lives

voyage; butthe accountof the Vita Lupi is far briefer than Constan-
tius’, and the Vita Genovefae, while only concerned with Germanus’
passage through Paris en route to Britain, none the less provides a theo-
logical account of Pelagianism totally absent from Vita Germani. 88 In
other sources, the purposes of Germanus’ missions are omitted alto-
gether or radically altered; in several texts, Germanus’ Italian journey
was to Rome, not Ravenna, as a pilgrimage to the martyrs’ shrines. 89
Even the Gesta of the bishops of Auxerre, compiled in the ninth century
on the model of the Roman Liber pontificalis and closely following Con-
stantius in its account of Germanus, omits Germanus’ journey to Arles,
and provides no details on the purpose of the journey to Ravenna. 90
Some later recensions of Vita Germani, increasingly interpolated with text
from later hagiographies, retained the miracle accounts but removed them
from the context of Germanus’ journeys, thus overthrowing Constantius’
structure. 91
Constantius’ portrait of Germanus is striking for its exaggerated pre-
sentation of the bishop as constantly engaged in strenuous journeys and
intercession. This image, grafted onto existing models of sanctity, has no
known precedent in hagiographical literature; Sidonius’ presentation of
Avitus, however, is a suggestive comparandum in literary technique. It
was an image which appealed for a limited period; by the late sixth cen-
tury at the latest, the image was superseded within the literary traditions
of the cult of Germanus. Within that period, however, other authors of
pious biography made use of the typology established by Constantius. 92

88 Vita Genovefae,c. 2.
89 Vita Severi,c. 4 (pilgrimage to Rome); Gregory of Tours: Gloria confessorum, ed. B. Krusch, MGH
SRM 1.2, 40 (Germanus died in Rome; yet Gregory’s record of the length of time taken for
the funeral cort` ege to reach Auxerre accords with the Kal. Autiss., 98, 124; Grosjean, ‘Notes
d’hagiographie celtique 29: Le dernier voyage de S. Germain’, 180). Cf. Missale gall. vetus, 342
(Germanus preached and performed miracles in ‘all Gaul, Rome, Italy, and Britain’).
90 Gesta episcoporum Autissiodorensis (see Appendix i), vii.
91
Levison, Introduction to Constantius, Vita Germani, 237 (on MS Paris BN lat. 12598).
92
The Vitae of Lupus of Troyes and of Genovefa of Paris have obvious textual connections with
Vita Germani: both refer to Germanus’ journeys to Britain (Lupus accompanied Germanus on his
first voyage; Genovefa, as a child, met the bishop as he passed through Paris on both his journeys
to Britain); both are involved with barbarian rulers (Lupus with Attila and the Alamanni king
Gebavult, Genovefa with Attila and Clovis); Vita Lupi episcopi Trecensis, ed. B. Krusch, MGH
SRM 3 (1896)and 7 (1920), 4, 5, 10; Vita Genovefae virginis Parisiensis, ed. B. Krusch, MGH
SRM 3, 2–4, 9, 10–12, 55. But, though both Vitae exploit Germanus’ fame, neither displays the
influence of Constantius’ portrait of the bishop as an effective envoy either in structure or in
imagery. (On the dates of these works, now considered to be early sixth century: Eugen Ewig,
‘Bemerkungen zur Vita des Bischofs Lupus von Troyes’, in K. Hauck and H. Mordek (eds.),
Geschtichtesschreibung und geistiges Leben im Mittelalter (Cologne, 1978), 14–26; M. Heinzelmann
and J.-C. Poulin, Les Vies anciennes de Sainte Genevi` eve de Paris (Paris, 1986).)

137