Eugenius Vulgarius

Eugenius Vulgarius or Eugenio Vulgario ("fl. c." 887–928) ["Eugenio Vulgario", "Dizionario biografico degli Italiani" (Rome: Società Grafica Romana, 1960–present).] was an Italian priest and poet.

Eugenius' epithet may allude to his Bulgar heritage, and he may have been a descendant of the horde of Alzec that settled in the Molise in the seventh century and were still distinguishable by their language in the late eighth. [John B. Dillon (2004), "Bulgars". "Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia", ed. Christopher Kleinhenz (London: Routledge), p. 163.] Knowledgeable of Latin and Greek, he was also deeply learned in the Classics and displays familiarity with Virgil, Horace, and the tragedies of Seneca.

Around 907, when he was a presbyter and teacher of rhetoric and grammar at the episcopal school in Naples, Eugenius wrote a pamphlet defending Pope Formosus, who had given him holy orders, from the attacks of the reigning Pope Sergius III. He produced a second treatise on this same subject in dialogue form.Eleanor Shipley Duckett (1988), "Death and Life in the Tenth Century" (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press), pp. 230–31.] In these, entitled "De causâ Formosianâ", and "Eugenius Vulgarius Petro Diacono fratri et amico", he denies the authority of the Holy See and proclaims that only a deserving man can ever truly be pope. [His rhetoric may have been useful to the Ottonian emperors, for a copy of Eugenius' Formosan treatises survives in the library of Otto III at Bamberg, c.f. Claudio Leonardi (1999), "Intellectual Life", "The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 2: c.900–c.1024", Timothy Reuter, Rosamond McKitterick, and David Abulafia, edd. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 207.] Sergius ordered him imprisoned in a monastery, probably that of the monks of Montecassino at Teano, but soon reversed this and summoned him to Rome for trial. Eugenius responded to the threat posed by this with a series of fawning verses of praise for Pope Sergius and the city of Rome, "aurea Roma" (golden Rome), to which the pope (he claimed) had brought renewed glory. He even went so far as to declare the pope's lover, Theodora, "full of virtue".

Eugenius composed three different pattern poems eulogising the Byzantine emperor Leo VI. He credits Leo with victories over barbarians in both Europe and Africa. [In 911 Leo VI granted a privilege to the monks of Teano, possibly owing to Eugenius' praise, c.f. Herbert Bloch (1946), "Monte Cassino, Byzantium, and the West in the Earlier Middle Ages", "Dumbarton Oaks Papers", 3, pp. 169–70.] Eugenius also praised Atenulf I of Benevento for his victories over the Saracens of the Garigliano. Among his other works are some glosses on Martianus Capella and a poem about nature, the arrival of springtime, and the hymn of the birds. [F. M. Warren (1912), "The Troubadour "Canso" and Latin Lyric Poetry", "Modern Philology", 9(4), p. 481. J. E. Caerwyn Williams (1989/90), "The Nature Prologue in Welsh Court Poetry", "Studia celtica", 24/25, p. 78, credits Eugenius as the first to connect the "nature prologue", which was later to be so important to the courtly love lyric, to a "love interest".] Eugenius also produced metrical calendars. Eugenius was a friend of Auxilius of Naples, who likewise defended Formosus in poetry.

External links

* [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/eugenius.html Metrum parhemiacum tragicum] from The Latin Library

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