Au-delà du mariage charnel : l’éloge de la sponsa Christi selon Avit de Vienne

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At the beginning of the sixth century, the bishop of Vienne (near Lyon), Avit, renews the literary exhortation to virginity by writing to his sister, a nun, a poem De consolatoriacastitatis laude. This strange title stresses a paradoxical rhetoric about marriage. First, we will be interested in the notions of “chastity” and “virginity” as well distinguished and associated in the poem through the proposed examples of virtue, men, uxores, uiduae or uirgines. Thereafter, we will analyze the rhetorical pattern (plot) : how virginity is both a eulogy of the matrimoniumspirituale and rejection of the matrimonium carnale; why should a Christian virgin be consoled for having chosen the perfect way of live ? We will also highlight the evolution of the place of women in the Christian aristocracy compared to the previous period, during which the discourse on virginity addressed to women take shape, as shown by the works of Ambrose, Augustin and Jerome.