Ruricius
Saint Ruricius | |
|---|---|
| Bishop | |
| Born | ~440 AD |
| Died | ~507 AD |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
Saint Ruricius (ca 440 – 507 or shortly after 507), a bishop of Limoges, then Augustoritum, in Haute Vienne, from 484 or 485 who had ties to the Gallo-Roman gens of the Avitii and the Anicii,[1] was one of four fifth- to sixth-century Gallo-Roman aristocrats whose letters survive in quantity: the others are Sidonius Apollinaris, prefect of Rome in 468 and bishop of Clermont (died 485), Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, bishop of Vienne (died 518); and Magnus Felix Ennodius of Arles, bishop of Ticinum (died 534). All of them were linked in the tightly-bound aristocratic Gallo-Roman network that provided the bishops of Catholic Gaul.[2] Their links were cultural as well: Sidonius' friend Hespericus was the rhetor in charge of educating Ruricius' sons.[3] He also built the monastery and church of St. Augustine at Limoges after 485.
When the ascetic anti-Pelagian bishop Faustus of Riez was ousted by the Visigoth Euric, Ruricius offered him hospitality; the two exchanged letters that survive. On the whole, the letters of Ruricius offer little for the ecclesiastical historian, and current political events are ignored; instead, the letters represent the last phase of a self-consciously literate Gallic rhetorical style, in which a modern reader would certainly not detect, as his contemporary and correspondent Sidonius Apollinaris feared, "all the purple garb of the discourse of the nobility... discoloured by the carelessness of the mob";[4] Indeed, Ruricius composed with a consciously metrical rhythmic prose that already mixes accentual rhythms, recently developing through the fifth century CE, with the quantitative rhythm of Classical Latin, (Hagendahl 1952:ch. iii); Avitus of Vienne, in the early sixth century, noted that his poem "sings by preserving the length of the syllables, which few understand".[5]
The letters of Ruricius, together with thirteen addressed to him, were preserved along with others in a single manuscript, the ninth-century Codex Sangallensis 878.[6]
Married before 460 to Iberia? or Hiberia? of Auvergne (then Arvennia) (born ca 455), daughter of Ommatius? (Ommace?), Senator of Auvergne (born ca 425), their daughter (born ca 460) married before 480 St. Rusticus, Archbishop of Lyon.
According to contemporary authors he was a descendant of the Anicii Family of Rome [citation needed], the main in Rome between the 4th century and the 6th century, through his father, born ca 420, who was a son of Adelphius, Bishop of Limoges.
Notes
- ^ The Gallic emperor Eparchius Avitus had without doubt the most prominent career among the clan. See: T. S. M. Mommaerts & D. H. Kelley, The Anicii of Gaul and Rome, in Fifth-century Gaul: a Crisis of Identity?, ed. by John Drinkwater and Hugh Elton, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York, 1992) 111-121.
- ^ Ralph W. Mathisen, "Epistolography, Literary Circles and Family Ties in Late Roman Gaul" Transactions of the American Philological Association 111 (1981), pp. 95-109; M. Heinzelmann, Bischofsherrschung in Gallien (Munich) 1976.
- ^ Epistolae, 1.3.5-6, noted in Mathisen 1988:51.
- ^ Sidonius Apollinaris, quoted by Ralph W. Mathisen, "The Theme of Literary Decline in Late Roman Gaul" Classical Philology 83.1 (January 1988, pp. 45-52) p 46.
- ^ Proem to his Carmina 6, noted in Mathisen 1988:47.
- ^ So called from its conservation at the Abbey of St. Gall.
Further reading
- Hagendahl, Harald. "La correspondance de Ruricius",Acta Universitatis Gotenburgensis 58.3 (Göteborg) 1952.
- Krusch, B. Ruricii Epistolae in Mon. Ger. Hist. AA8 (Berlin) 1887; A. Englebrecht, ed. Ruricii Epistolarum Libri Duo (Vienna) 1891. There are no modern editions.
- Mathisen, Ralph W. Ruricius of Limoges and Friends: A collection of letters from Visiogthic Gaul (Liverpool: University Press, 1999). ISBN 0-85323-703-4 A modern English translation of Ruricius' surviving letters.
Sources
- Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum (The History of the Franks) (London, England: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1974).
- Christian Settipani, Les Ancêtres de Charlemagne (France: Éditions Christian, 1989).
- Sidonius Apollinaris, The Letters of Sidonius (Oxford: Clarendon, 1915) (orig.), pp. clx-clxxxiii; List of Correspondents, Notes, V.ix.1.
- Luíz Paulo Manuel de Menezes de Mello Vaz de São-Payo, A Herança Genética de Dom Afonso I Henriques (Portugal: Centro de Estudos de História da Família da Universidade Moderna do Porto, Porto, 2002).