Martin of Tours, Saint

MARTIN OF TOURS, Saint. - He was the first father of monasticism in the West and a great apostle of Gaul. His biographer Sulpicius Severus handed down much information about his life; the chronology can be fixed only approximately, especially for the period of his youth.

I. LIFE

Born at Sabaria, in Pannonia, around 315, to a pagan military tribune who at the end of his service retired with his family to Pavia, where M. was educated. At the age of ten he had himself enrolled among the catechumens on his own initiative. He soon felt drawn to the solitary life, but instead at fifteen he was enlisted by his father in the cavalry. He began his service at eighteen or nineteen and was assigned to Gaul, and at this time there took place at the gates of Amiens the historically certain episode of the cloak given to the poor man. After three years of service he received Baptism, around 337, and two years later (339-40) he obtained his discharge and settled at Poitiers. When Hilary became bishop there (around 350), he wanted to ordain M. deacon, but contented himself with the rank of exorcist.

There follow some years of wanderings: he went to his homeland to convert his parents, but succeeded only with his mother; he tried to turn his fellow countrymen away 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 some time he led a solitary life on the island of Gallinaria; on learning of Hilary's return from exile (360), he joined him at Poitiers, only to withdraw shortly afterwards to Ligugé, where he founded the first monastery of the West, soon populated by many monks. Meanwhile, as the fame of his virtues and his miracles spread, among them the raising of two dead men, he was elected bishop of Tours and consecrated on 4 July 371.

Thanks to his pastoral activity M. exercised a broad influence on the Churches of all Gaul. Outwardly nothing changed in his previous life, for he continued to lead a simple and retired life in the new large monastery that he established at Marmoutier, two miles from Tours, to which many monks soon flocked and which became a true seminary of monks, clerics and holy and zealous bishops. In Gaul until then Christianity had won many followers in the cities, but the countryside remained almost entirely pagan. M. provided for the conversion of these as well. Accompanied by his monks, he undertook regular missionary expeditions in which he preached, converted, destroyed temples replacing them with churches, and introduced Christian feasts. Where he encountered greater resistance, he founded monasteries which through their radiating influence brought about the conversion of the people and made superstition disappear.

The beneficial influence of M.'s zeal was not confined to his Church of Tours, but extended gradually to all Gaul. It reached even the imperial court of Trier, where M. went under Valentinian I (around 374) and under the usurper Maximus, on the occasion of the trial against Priscillian (v.) and his companions (384-86). On this occasion he championed the independence of the Church from political power. He did not succeed, unfortunately, in preventing the execution of the accused, owing above all to the pressure of many bishops on the Emperor; but, even though he granted his communion to the principal accuser of Priscillian, Ithacius, he obtained that the Priscillianists in Spain be spared.

Death overtook him at Candes, during a journey undertaken for a work of pacification, on 8 Nov. 397. His body was accompanied to Tours by 2000 monks, many virgins and an immense multitude of people and laid to rest on 11 Nov. With this the cult of this great Saint practically began, a man who had known how to unite the spirit of prayer with a prodigious activity, the monastic ideal and apostolic zeal, and had been favored by God with the gift of miracles. Over the tomb of M. the bishop Iricius (d. 444) raised a chapel and then the bishop Perpetuus (491) a grand basilica that was the goal of continuous pilgrimages throughout the Middle Ages. Among the pilgrims one must remember the kings of France from Clovis down to the 16th century. The relics of M. were transferred in the 9th century to save them from profanation by the Normans. Placed back in the original site in 1323, they were dispersed in 1562 by the Huguenots. Some remains were rediscovered in 1860 and the new Basilica was built over them.

The cult of M. became extremely popular throughout the West and also in the East: in France and then in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, in England churches and parishes were dedicated to him. The Benedictines, following the example of the founder who dedicated a chapel to M. at Montecassino, consecrated cloisters and churches to M. Many professions, basing themselves on real or legendary events of his life, chose M. as their protector: soldiers, knights, beggars, innkeepers, tailors, etc.

Vincenzo Monachino

II. VENERATION AND ANCIENT ICONOGRAPHY

The story of St. M. written by Sulpicius Severus had such a diffusion that when the book reached Rome it was snapped up, and the booksellers declared with satisfaction that no book had ever been sold more quickly and at a higher price (Sulpicius Severus, Dialogues, I, 23). St. M. was known to the Romans also because he had come there in 360 to meet Hilary of Poitiers, who had instead already embarked to return to Gaul. The biography of St. M. spread to Carthage, to Alexandria, to Syria and as far as the Thebaid. The popularity of his biography, which perhaps had illustrated copies, also explains the diffusion of his iconography. Sulpicius Severus himself had the image of the Saint painted in the baptistery of Primuliacum, also illustrated by an epigraph of St. Paulinus of Nola.

The abbey of Ligugé in Poitou, founded by him in 361, restored several times (12th, 15th, 16th, 19th century by D. Guéranger) is still today a goal of pilgrimages (in July and on 11 Nov.) especially for the chapel erected on the spot where St. M. is said to have raised a catechumen. St. M. also founded an abbey near Tours, a monastery that for its importance was called "maius monasterium", today Marmoutier, of which the ancient fortified gate (Portail de la Crosse) and some remains of the Basilica survive. As early as 472 the bishop Perpetuus raised at Tours a basilica in honor of St. M.; the scenes of the miracles worked by him were depicted around his tomb and illustrated by an epigraph dictated by Paulinus of Périgueux and by another of Sidonius Apollinaris. Gregory of Tours (Hist. Franc., II, 16) rebuilt his Cathedral in the 6th century and adorned it with frescoes reproducing the miracles of the Apostle of Gaul, accompanied by verses composed by Fortunatus and inspired by the narrative of Sulpicius Severus (E. Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, 3 vols., Paris 1856-92, nos. 186-92). At Vienne in the epitaph of Foedula it is recalled that she was baptized by St. M. (CIL, XII, 2115). The Frankish kings kept as a distinguished relic a small cloak or "cappa" that was said to have belonged to St. M.: it was kept in the Palace by the "chaplain" and carried into battle; sacred was the oath "super capella domni Martini". The name chapel was given to the religious building that kept the relics (H. Delehaye, Loca sanctorum, in Anal. Boll., 48 [1930], p. 46 offprint).

G. Wilpert pointed out that St. Martin, together with St. Sylvester, were the first non-martyr saints to be depicted (Mosaiken, p. 102). In Rome, in the time of Pope Symmachus (498-514), a church was erected in his honor; in the apse of the chapel of St. Sylvester, Cardinal Uguccione (1201) perhaps renewed the original decoration of Symmachus, in which was represented the Madonna enthroned between the apostles Peter and Paul, St. Sylvester and St. Martin (a copy of the fresco is in cod. Vat. Barb. lat. 4405, erroneously reproduced as a mosaic in G. B. De Rossi, Muscati cristiani delle chiese di Roma, Rome 1872-96, pl. 26). Furthermore, near St. Peter's in the Vatican, one of the monasteries that provided the "laus perennis" in the Basilica was dedicated to St. Martin; from this monastery Pope Agatho (678-81) sent the abbot John to England. At Ravenna, Bishop Agnellus (556-69) restored to Catholic worship the Basilica erected by the Arian king Theodoric, dedicating it to St. Martin, and it was called "in caelo aureo" because of the splendor of its mosaics. There St. Martin leads the great procession of martyrs toward Jesus Christ in majesty. At Nantes, in the church of Sts. Peter and Paul, around the middle of the 6th century, an altar was placed in honor of St. Martin. At Bordeaux, Bishop Leontius II (542-64) erected a basilica in honor of St. Martin; the poem composed in his honor by Fortunatus survives (E. Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, 3 vols., Paris 1856-92, no. 587). Gregory of Tours describes the marvelous basilica of St. Martin of Orense in Spain, erected by the Suevic king Chararic.

At the beginning of the 7th century, Queen Brunhilda and Bishop Syagrius dedicated a basilica to St. Martin at Autun, divided by 44 marble columns; the walls were decorated with mosaics recalled with admiration in an 11th-century Life of St. Hugh; and in the 18th century traces of them still remained. In the 12th century at Jumièges, in the church dedicated to the Virgin, beside the main altar, was the one dedicated to St. Peter and St. Martin. In Paris, the church of St-Martin-des-champs, an abbey demolished by the Normans, near the ancient road that brought pilgrims from the North to St. James of Compostela, occupies the site of the primitive oratory erected there by an inhabitant in gratitude for the miracles worked by St. Martin in the region. The oldest church of England mentioned by St. Bede (Historia eccles., I, 26) was dedicated to St. Martin, as also in Scotland was the famous "Candida casa" (ibid., III, 4). The veneration of St. Martin in Germany is attested in several places (J. Dorn, Beiträge zur Patrocinienforschung, in Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 13 [1917], pp. 9-49, 220-55). In Belgium in 1205 a chapel was erected in honor of St. Martin at Gembloux by the abbot Guibert, a zealous propagator of his cult (H. Delehaye, Guibert abbé de Florennes et de Gembloux, in Revue des questions historiques, new series, 12 [1869], p. 82 ff.). But in the diocese of Liège there already existed churches dedicated to St. Martin which were rebuilt at the beginning of the 13th century by Bishop Philip of Ratzeburg, a friend of Guibert.

The representations of the episodes of St. Martin's life begin with the examples of his charity; Martin, a young soldier, divides his cloak to give half of it to a poor man; as bishop he offers his tunic to a poor man; he heals a leper by embracing him; he overturns the idols, has a sacred pine cut down which in falling avoids him, raises the dead, demonstrating to the pagans that he was sent by God.

Venantius Fortunatus already points out in his time, in Padua, the church of St. Justina adorned by the miracles of St. Martin ("cuius habet paries Martini gesta figuris", De vita s. Martini, IV, 674: PL 88, 425). In Milan, in St. Ambrose, in the sumptuous antependium that Archbishop Angilbert II had executed by Volvinius (833) in gold and silver plates worked in repoussé, besides one of the clipei with the bust of St. Martin, St. Ambrose is represented in ecstasy during the Mass, while he is transported in spirit to Tours to the dying Apostle of the Gauls and then lays him in the sarcophagus. Later the two episodes will be repeated in the mosaics of the apse at the end of the 12th century. In Spain the episodes of the legend of St. Martin are found in a series of 11th-century paintings, now in the Episcopal Museum of Vich.

Thus, for example, in the Benedictine abbey of Moissac the story of St. Martin is carved in one of the capitals of the cloister (mid-12th century). On the south side is represented the city of Amiens; on the west side the Saint on horseback cuts his cloak to give it to the poor man, as the inscription teaches: dir(im)it vestem; on the north Christ shows the cloak carried by the angels; on the east the bishop raises a dead man. On the abacus one reads: Martinus adhuc catecuminus hac me veste context - hic Martinus electus Dei pontifex.

These cycles are repeated in many sacred buildings, as at Lucca, but above all in the cycle rescued by Simone Martini (1322-26) in the chapel of St. Martin in the lower basilica of St. Francis in Assisi. The miracles of St. Martin are found in the stained-glass windows of many cathedrals of France, as at Beauvais, at Bourges, at Tours, at Chartres where he is depicted seven times. At Vézelay in Burgundy, in the abbey church, in one of the capitals of the nave is carved the episode of St. Martin who with the sign of the Cross stops the tree that was about to crush him (11th century). Certainly the most frequently reproduced episode is that of the group of the Saint dividing his cloak, as at Lucca, at Colmar, at Metz, etc. St. Martin is represented in an enamel of Laguenne (Corrèze) of the 13th century. At Soudeilles (Corrèze) a bust in gilded silver of St. Martin with translucent enamels is from the middle of the 14th century; a statue is in the church of St. Martin at Argentau (Calvados), and another in that of Lougny-au-Perché (Sarthe). At Tulle (Corrèze) the ancient abbey church of the 12th century and then cathedral is dedicated to St. Martin; to the same century belongs the church of St-Martin at Brive-la-Gaillarde; to the 13th those of Colmar and Metz; to the 14th that of Pont-à-Mousson (Lorraine), to the 15th that of St-Dié (Vosges), to the Renaissance that of Troyes.

Enrico Josi

III. ART

In art the iconography of the Saint is found in miniatures of the Sacramentaries of Ivrea (of ca. 1000) and of Udine (of the 11th century). Among the many, we may recall a miniature from the Book of Hours of Anne of Brittany, in the National Library in Paris; a sculpture from the monastery of Ulm of 1418, a Veronese sculpture in the local Civic Museum, of ca. 1432, and, in the full Renaissance, the altarpiece for St. Martin of Piazza Brambana by Lattanzio da Rimini, that of Antonio Solario now in the Pinacoteca of Naples, that of Butinone in the cathedral of Treviglio, that of Caroto in St. Anastasia in Verona, besides engravings by Martin Schongauer, by Israel van Meckenem, by Albrecht Dürer, etc. Van Dyck and Rubens too, in two large canvases preserved in Windsor Castle, gave a lively representation of him, eloquent and crowded.

He also recurs in tapestries (at Angers, in the Louvre, etc.), in altarpieces, with the depiction of individual episodes, etc. The tradition lasted well beyond the 16th century. Eustache Lesueur, in a celebrated painting (1654), now in the Louvre, gave a representation of the miracle of the Mass.

Eugenio Battisti

IV. FOLKLORE

The date on which the saint's feast falls (Nov. 11) determines the meaning and character of the various popular traditions that take place on that day. They can be traced back to two main sources of inspiration. In those days the grape harvest is completed, hence an occasion for festive and abundant drinking and banquets. Among the ritual foods in Italy are turkey and the cicerchiata (a ring-shaped cake of sweet dough); in Germany, goose and also certain special sweets named after the saint. In Abruzzo St. M. is a symbol of abundance. The feast has therefore been linked, in past centuries, with the Anthesteria of the Greeks, and in particular with the first day of those, called πύθαγία = tapping of the cask.

Popular tradition is further inspired by the fact that the saint's day marks, especially in countries with a cold climate, the beginning of winter: hence there are various customs similar to those of January 1, or of carnival, or of other feasts that open a seasonal cycle. In many places rents fall due on this day; in Friuli the contracts for farm lands are renewed; in Abruzzo those for the grazing of pigs. Widely diffused in various countries, from Belgium to Holland, to Germany and central Italy, is the custom of bonfires and torches; and from the flaring of the flames and the direction of the smoke prognostics are drawn for the agricultural year. In the Veneto, the girls of the common people go about singing begging songs; and in Germany the songs of St. M. constitute a special genre of folkloristic poetry. In the Agordino the girls used to distribute hazelnuts to the young men. In some villages it was permitted to wear masks on that evening.

In France as in Abruzzo the saint's name is associated with a great number of natural cavities in the mountains and rocks: the grotto of St. M. is one of the most famous of the Majella. Many fountains too, to which curative virtues are attributed, are named after the saint. The Abruzzo peasants have recourse to him for the healing of various illnesses, and especially of colic: for this purpose the sufferers, on that day, roll on the ground near places bearing the saint's name.

Sometimes the saint is popularly confused with St. M. of Atessa (Abruzzo) and, in France, with St. M. of Nantes. He is moreover the patron of Lucca, of knights, of tailors, of innkeepers and of geese. - See plate XVIII.

Paolo Toschi