Martin of Tours, Saint

MARTINO di TOURS, saint. – He was the first father of monasticism in the West and a great apostle of Gaul. His biographer Sulpicius Severus transmitted much information about his life; the chronology can be established only approximately, especially for the period of his youth.

I. LIFE

B. 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 voluntarily enrolled among the catechumens. He soon felt attracted to the solitary life, but instead, at fifteen, was enlisted in the cavalry by his father. He began his service at the age of eighteen or nineteen and was assigned to Gaul; it was during this period that the historically certain scene of the cloak given to a poor man took place at the gates of Amiens. After three years of service he received Baptism, around 337, and two years later (339–40) obtained his discharge and settled at Poitiers. When Hilary became bishop there (around 350), he wished to ordain M. deacon, but was content with conferring on him the rank of exorcist.

Several years of wanderings followed: he went to his homeland to convert his parents, but succeeded only with his mother; he attempted to turn his compatriots away from Arianism, but was mistreated and driven out, as also happened to him at Milan at the hands of the Arian bishop Auxentius; for some time he led a solitary life on the island of Gallinaria; having learned of Hilary’s return from exile (360), he joined him at Poitiers, only shortly afterward to withdraw to Ligugé, where he founded the first monastery in the West, soon populated by many monks. As the fame of his virtues and miracles spread, including the resurrection of two dead persons, he was elected bishop of Tours and consecrated on 4 July 371.

Through his pastoral activity M. exercised a broad influence over the Churches of all Gaul. Outwardly

nothing changed in his former way of life, since he continued to lead a simple and secluded existence in the great new monastery that he established at Marmoutier, two miles from Tours. Many monks soon flocked to it, and it became a true seminary of holy and zealous monks, clerics, and bishops. Until then, Christianity in Gaul had won many adherents in the cities, but the countryside remained almost entirely pagan. M. provided for the conversion of these regions as well. Accompanied by his monks, he undertook regular missionary expeditions during which he preached and converted, destroyed temples and replaced them with churches, and introduced Christian festivals. Where he encountered greater resistance, he founded monasteries whose radiating influence brought about the conversion of the people and caused superstition to disappear.

The beneficial influence of M.’s zeal did not remain confined to his Church of Tours but gradually extended throughout Gaul. It reached even the imperial court at Trier, where M. went under Valentinian I (around 374) and under the usurper Maximus, on the occasion of the trial of Priscillian (v.) and his companions (384–86). On this occasion he defended the Church’s independence from political power. Unfortunately, he was unable to prevent the execution of the accused, chiefly because of pressure exerted on the Emperor by many bishops; but, although granting his communion to Priscillian’s principal accuser, 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 November 397. His body was accompanied to Tours by 2,000 monks, many virgins, and an immense multitude of people, and was buried on 11 November. With this, the cult of this great Saint practically began: he had known how to unite the spirit of prayer with prodigious activity, the monastic ideal with apostolic zeal, and had been favored by God with the gift of miracles. Over M.’s tomb, Bishop Iricius (d. 444) erected a chapel, and later Bishop Perpetuus (491) built a magnificent basilica, which was the destination of continuous pilgrimages throughout the Middle Ages. Among the pilgrims, the kings of France, from Clovis to the sixteenth century, must be remembered. M.’s relics were transferred in the ninth century to protect them from desecration by the Normans. Returned to their original location in 1323, they were scattered 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 later in Germany, Italy, Spain, and England, churches and parishes were dedicated to him. The Benedictines, following the example of their founder, who dedicated a chapel to M. at Montecassino, consecrated cloisters and churches to M. Many professions, basing themselves on real or legendary events in his life, chose M. as their patron: soldiers, knights, beggars, innkeepers, tailors, and so forth.

II. VENERATION AND ANCIENT ICONOGRAPHY

The history of s. M. written by Sulpizio Severo enjoyed such wide circulation that, when the book reached Rome, it sold out immediately, and booksellers proudly declared that no book had ever sold more quickly or at a higher price (Sulpizio Severo, Dialoghi, I, 23). S. M. was also known to the Romans because he had arrived there in 360 to meet Hilary of Poitiers, who, however, had already embarked to return to Gaul. The biography of s. M. spread to Carthage, Alexandria, Syria, and even the Thebaid. The popularity of his biography, which may have had illustrated copies, also explains the diffusion of his iconography. Sulpizio Severo himself had the image of the Saint painted in the baptistery of Primuliacum, which was also celebrated by an epigraph of St Paulinus of Nola.

The abbey of Ligugé in Poitou, founded by him in 361 and restored several times (twelfth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and nineteenth centuries, by D. Guéranger), is still a destination for pilgrimages (in July and on 11 November), especially because of the chapel erected at the place where s. M. is said to have resurrected a catechumen. S. M. also founded an abbey near Tours, a monastery whose importance earned it the name « maius monasterium », today Marmoutier; its remains include the ancient fortified gate (Portail de la Crosse) and some vestiges of the Basilica. As early as 472, Bishop Perpetuus erected a basilica in Tours in honor of s. M.; the scenes of the miracles he performed were depicted around his tomb and illustrated by an epigraph composed by Paulinus of Périgueux and another by Sidonius Apollinaris. Gregory of Tours (Hist. Franc., II, 16) rebuilt his Cathedral in the sixth century and embellished it with frescoes depicting the miracles of the Apostle of Gaul, accompanied by verses composed by Fortunatus and inspired by the account of Sulpizio Severo (E. Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, 3 vols., Paris 1856–92, nos. 186–92). At Vienne, the epitaph of Foedula records that she was baptized by s. M. (CIL, XII, 2115). The Frankish kings preserved as a distinguished relic a small cloak or « cappa » said to have belonged to s. M.; it was kept in the Palace by the « cappellano » and carried into battle; the oath « super capella domni Martini » was considered sacred. The name cappella was given to the religious building that preserved the relics (H. Delehaye, Loca sanctorum, in Anal. Boll., 48 [1930], p. 46 offprint).

G. Wilpert brought to light that s. M., together with s. Silvestro, was among the first non-martyr saints to be represented (Mosaiken, p. 102). In Rome, at the time of Pope Simmaco (498–514), a church was erected in his honor; in the apse of the chapel of S. Silvestro, Cardinal Uguccione (1201) perhaps renewed Simmaco’s original decoration, in which the Madonna enthroned was represented between the Apostles Pietro and Paolo, s. Silvestro, and s. M. (a copy of the fresco in cod. Vat. Barb. lat. 4405, mistakenly reproduced as a mosaic in G. B. De Rossi, Muscati cristiani delle chiese di Roma, Rome 1872–96, pl. 26). Moreover, at S. Pietro in Vaticano, one of the monasteries that provided the « laus perennis » in the Basilica was dedicated to s. M.; from there Pope Agatone (678–81) sent the abbot Giovanni to England. At Ravenna, Bishop Agnello (556–69) restored to Catholic worship the Basilica erected by the Arian king Teodorico, dedicating it to s. M.; it was called « in caelo aureo » because of the splendor of its mosaics. There s. M. leads the great procession of martyrs toward Jesus Christ in majesty. At Nantes, in the church of SS. Pietro e Paolo, an altar was erected in honor of s. M. around the middle of the sixth century. At Bordeaux, Bishop Leonzio II (542–64) erected a basilica in honor of s. M.; the poem composed in his honor by Fortunato is preserved (E. Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, 3 vols., Paris 1856–92, no. 587). Gregorio di Tours describes the marvelous basilica of S. M. of Orense in Spain, erected by the Suevian king Carrarico.

At the beginning of the seventh century, Queen Brunilde and Bishop Siagrio dedicated a basilica to s. M. at Autun, divided by 44 marble columns; the walls were decorated with mosaics mentioned admiringly in an eleventh-century Vita of s. Ugo, and traces of them still remained in the eighteenth century. In the twelfth century at Jumiège, in the church dedicated to the Virgin, beside the main altar, there was one dedicated to s. Pietro and s. M. 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 S. Giacomo di Compostella, occupies the site of the original oratory erected there by an inhabitant in gratitude for the miracles performed by s. M. in the region. The oldest church in England mentioned by s. Beda (Historia eccles., I, 26) was dedicated to s. M.,

as was also the celebrated « Candida casa » in Scotland (ibid., III, 4). The veneration of s. M. 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 in honor of s. M. was erected at Gembloux by the abbot Guiberto, 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 supplement). But in the diocese of Liège there were already churches dedicated to s. M.; these were rebuilt at the beginning of the thirteenth century by Bishop Filippo di Ratzeburg, a friend of Guiberto.

Representations of episodes from the life of s. M. begin with examples of his charity: M., 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 idols and has a sacred pine tree cut down, which, as it falls, swerves away from him; he raises the dead, demonstrating to the pagans that he has been sent by God.

Venanzio Fortunato already points out in his own time the church of S. Giustina in Padua, illustrated by the miracles of s. M. (« cuius habet paries Martini gesta figuris », De vita s. Martini, IV, 674: PL 88, 425). In Milan, in S. Ambrogio, on the sumptuous antependium that Archbishop Angilberto II had Volvinio execute (833) in repoussé-worked gold and silver sheets, in addition to one of the medallions with the bust of s. M., s. Ambrogio is represented in ecstasy during Mass, while in spirit he travels to Tours, to the dying Apostle of Gaul, and then lays him in the sarcophagus. Later, the two episodes would be repeated in the mosaics of the apse at the end of the twelfth century. In Spain, episodes from the legend of s. M. appear in a series of eleventh-century paintings, now in the Episcopal Museum of Vich.

Thus, for example, in the Benedictine abbey of Moissac, the story of s. M. is carved on one of the capitals of the cloister (mid-twelfth century). On the south side, the city of Amiens is represented; on the west side, the Saint on horseback cuts his mantle to give it to the poor man, as the inscription teaches: dir(im)it vestem; on the north, Christ shows the mantle 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 especially in the cycle painted by Simone Martini (1322–26) in the chapel of S. M. in the lower basilica of S. Francesco in Assisi. The miracles of s. M. are found in the stained-glass windows of many French cathedrals, such as those of Beauvais, Bourges, Tours, and Chartres, where he is depicted seven times. At Vézelay in Burgundy, in the abbey church, one of the capitals of the nave is carved with the episode of s. M. stopping with the sign of the Cross the tree that was about to crush him (eleventh century). Certainly the most frequently reproduced episode is that of the Saint dividing his mantle, as at Lucca, Colmar, Metz, and elsewhere. S. M. is represented in a thirteenth-century enamel from Laguenne (Corrèze). At Soudeilles (Corrèze), a half-length figure in gilded silver of s. M., with translucent enamels, dates from the mid-fourteenth century; a statue is in the church of S. M. at Argentau (Calvados), and another in that of Lougny-au-Perché (Sarthe). At Tulle (Corrèze), the ancient abbey church of the twelfth century, later a cathedral, is dedicated to s. M.; the church of St-Martin at Brive-la-Gaillarde belongs to the same century; those of Colmar and Metz to the thirteenth; that of Pont-à-Mousson (Lorraine) to the fourteenth; that of St-Dié (Vosges) to the fifteenth; and that of Troyes to the Renaissance.

Enrico Josi

III. ART

In art, the iconography of the Saint is found in miniatures of the Sacramentaries of Ivrea (ca. 1000) and Udine (11th century). Among the many examples, mention may be made of a miniature in the Book of Hours of Anne of Brittany, in the National Library of Paris; a sculpture from the monastery of Ulm, dated 1418; a Veronese sculpture in the local Civic Museum, dating from ca. 1432; and, in the full Renaissance, the altarpiece for the S. M. of Piazza Brambana by Lattanzio da Rimini, that by Antonio Solario now in the Pinacoteca of Naples, Butinone’s in the cathedral of Treviglio, Caroto’s in S. Anastasia in Verona, as well as engravings by Martino Schongauer, Israel van Meckenem, and Alberto Dürer,

etc. Van Dyck and Rubens, too, in two large canvases preserved in Windsor Castle, produced a lively, eloquent, and crowded representation of him.

He also appears in tapestries (at Angers, in the Louvre, etc.), in altarpieces depicting individual episodes, etc. The tradition continued beyond the sixteenth century. Eustache Lesueur, in a celebrated painting (1654), now in the Louvre, produced a representation of the miracle of the Mass.

Popular tradition is also 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 resembling those of the first of January, or of carnival, or of other feasts that open a seasonal cycle. In many places rents fall due on this day; in Friuli contracts for rural properties are renewed; in Abruzzo, those for pig pasturage. The use of torch-lit bonfires is widespread in various countries, from Belgium to Holland, Germany, and central Italy; and omens for the agricultural year are drawn from the flickering of the flames and the direction of the smoke. In the Veneto, girls of the people go about singing begging songs; and in Germany the songs of s. M. constitute a special genre of folk poetry. In the Agordino, girls used to distribute hazelnuts to young men. In some places people were permitted to wear masks that evening.

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

At times the Saint is popularly confused with s. M. di Atessa (Abruzzo) and, in France, with s. M. di Nantes. He is also the patron of Lucca, knights, tailors, innkeepers, and geese. - Vedi tav. XVIII.