MARTIN OF TOURS, Saint. — He was the first father of monasticism in the West and a great apostle of the Gauls. Many details of his life have been handed down by his biographer Sulpicius Severus; the chronology can be fixed only approximately, especially for the period of his youth.
I. LIFE
He was born at Sabaria in Pannonia around 315, to a pagan military tribune who, after completing his service, retired with his family to Pavia, where M. was educated. At the age of ten he voluntarily enrolled among the catechumens. He soon felt drawn to the solitary life, but instead, at fifteen, his father enrolled him in the cavalry. He began his service at eighteen or nineteen and was sent to Gaul, where the historically certain episode of the cloak given to the poor took place at the gates of Amiens. After three years of service he received Baptism around 337, and two years later (339–40) he obtained his discharge and settled in Poitiers. When Hilary became bishop there (around 350), he wished to ordain M. as deacon, but was content with the rank of exorcist.Several years of wandering followed: he went to his homeland to convert his parents, but succeeded only with his mother; he tried to dissuade his compatriots from Arianism, but was maltreated and driven out, a fate that also befell him at Milan at the hands of the Arian bishop Auxentius; for a time he lived in solitude on Gallinaria Island; learning of Hilary’s return from exile (360), he joined him in Poitiers, though soon after withdrawing to Ligugé, where he founded the first monastery in the West, soon populated by many monks. Meanwhile, the fame of his virtues and miracles—including the raising of two dead men—spread, and he was elected bishop of Tours and consecrated on 4 July 371.
Thanks to his pastoral activity, M. exercised a wide influence over the Churches of all Gaul. Externally
