Virtutes apostolorum: Origin, Aim, and Use

The marked interest in the apostles as an authoritative group heading the community of saints in the early Middle Ages is the focus of the article, which addresses three main questions. First, it analyses the origins of the Virtutes apostolorum. While the first material evidence (manuscripts) of these texts as a coherent series does not occur before the middle of the eighth century, indirect sources imply that the series circulated at an earlier date. In the late seventh and early eighth centuries, Anglo-Saxon authors like Aldhelm and Bede seem to have been familiar with a series of apostle narratives like the Virtutes apostolorum. Previous scholarship pointed in the direction of late sixth-century Gaul (Venantius Fortunatus, Gregory of Tours) for the origin of the series, but a further analysis of their works makes it questionable whether these attributions can hold. Secondly, the question is raised why the Virtutes apostolorum were written or rewritten in Latin in the first place. Material to answer this question is present in several prologues to individual sections. In these prologues, the rewriter testifies to his or her aim phrased as the wish to collect all that is known about each of the twelve apostles as far as their acts (virtutes) and martyrdom (passio) are concerned, and at the same time to purify this transmitted knowledge of unorthodox influences. Finally, the manuscripts themselves shed brighter light on the use of the Virtutes apostolorum and their transmission as a coherent series. The majority of preserved manuscripts have the character of a legendary, in which passions and saints’ lives were collected to be read in private meditation or public performative practices such as the liturgy. In some cases, the initial setup of the manuscript does not immediately reflect such use of the texts. However, almost all manuscripts contain marginal notes added at later stages, indicating a performative use of these texts in a liturgical context. The ins and outs of such use are discussed with the help of some examplary manuscripts, such as BnF 9737 and BnF 12604.