Saint Martin of Tours

There are two Saint Martins: the recently canonized Saint Martin de Porres and the older Saint Martin of Tours. The latter is known in Latin America as San Martin Caballero, "Saint Martin the Horse-rider”, and he is the one most frequently encountered in good luck charms. 

Saint Martin of Tours, or Saint Martin of Caballero, has his day of the week on Tuesday. His emblem is a horse, a sword, a goose and a torn cape. His colors are red and white. 

He is best known for compassion, charity and aiding others with generosity. In life, Saint Martin of Tours assisted with expelling unwanted sprits from individuals, in death he can be known to aid with this as well.

Saint Martin may be petitioned to block the path of "evil", for protection from enemies, to rescue someone from negative influences, to draw customers to a business, and for all manner of money, luck, and prosperity. Because the horse he rides is associated with the lucky horseshoe, he is also a favorite Saint among gamblers. 

He is Patron Saint of truck drivers, shop keepers, innkeepers, gamblers, geese, France, soldiers, horse riders of all kinds, of vintners, viticulture, and winemakers, of conscientious objectors, of exorcists, beggars, wool-weavers and tailors, of drunkards, and of those who rely on the kindness of strangers, especially for their livelihood. Mexican folklore believes him to be a particularly helpful saint toward business owners of all sorts. 

In Cuba, some Santeros synchronize Saint Martin with Ellegua due to his associations with travel and the crossroads. For these same reasons, he is also excellent in matters of Road Opening.  

All around the world there exists an abundance of towns, churches, schools, provinces and other establishments named in honor of Saint Martin - far too many to mention here! 

On one of his most important Patronages is of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, which has a medal in his name.

Martin Luther was named after St. Martin, as he was baptized on Saint Martin's Day in 1483. 

Many older Lutheran congregations are named after St. Martin, which is unusual for Lutherans because he is a saint who does not appear in the Bible. 

The photo above is from the Saint Martin Catholic Church & Cemetery in Warranton Texas. For decades an original painting of St. Martin of Tours hung in the tiny chapel. In recent years it was discovered to be the work of Ignac Berger, a master of church art. The painting was restored and can be seen at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Fayetteville County Texas along with other paintings by Berger. I do hope to make a pilgrimage to see this in the future! I'll be sure to share the experience with all of you.

The example of Saint Martin teaches us a legacy of compassion for the hungry and the homeless, compassion for the disenfranchised, for the vulnerable and voiceless. He teaches us to share our kindness. After all, tales of powerful beings roaming about, forlorn and distressed, in human guise, far predate anything found in the Bible.

More recently Saint Martin has been described in terms of "a spiritual bridge across Europe”. From Sweden to Spain, from England to the Dalmatian coast of Croatia, St. Martin’s Day/Martinmas/Martinstag/Sint-Maarten gives rise to seasonal celebrations that commemorate blood sacrifice and feasting, the building of sacred fires, uncorking the season’s first wines, welcoming the start of winter, and singing in the streets for treats. This important celebration in European folk practice is still quite widespread today. The Feast Day is strongly linked both to Halloween as well as to Thanksgiving. Saint Martin’s original Feast Day fell on October 31st & was moved to November 11th with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. For this reason, his Feast Day is often referred to as "Old Halloween" or "Old Hallowmas". 

The Feast of Saint Martin, falling as it does at this time in November, has clearly inherited many of the aspects associated with the Celtic Samhain, or “Summer’s End”. Even in modern Roman Catholicism, Saint Martin’s Day is seen as a culmination of ancestral remembrance begun on All Hallow’s Eve, or Hallowe’en. It’s the last day of a Carnivale-like atmosphere that has the living and the dead partying together by the bonfire’s glow. 

From the late 4th century to the late Middle Ages, much of Western Europe, including Great Britain, engaged in a period of fasting beginning on the day after St. Martin's Day. Because this period lasted 40 days, it was called Quadragesima Sancti Martini -  Latin for "the forty days of St. Martin." At St. Martin's eve and on the feast day, people ate and drank very heartily for a last time before they started to fast. This fasting time was later called "Advent" by the Church and was considered a time for spiritual preparation for Christmas.

Many of the traditions associated with Halloween such as bonfires, costume parties, parades, the carrying of lanterns, and jack-o-lanterns are commonplace on the Feast of Saint Martin.  It is also common for villages throughout Europe to host St. Martin Day parades where a costumed person on horseback, representing St. Martin, is followed by groups of children in costume. In addition, begging for candy door to door in a ritual similar to trick or treat is popular. St. Martin’s Day is also seen as a festival of the late harvest and a time to enjoy and give thanks for the abundance received from the earth. In Spain, Saint Martin’s day is a traditional day for slaughtering farm animals and preparing meat for the winter ahead. 

The most heartfelt moments of the feast from around Europe are the procession with alms collection, traditional songs, and the lighting of lanterns and bonfires. Widespread across Europe, from Malta to Estonia, the begging was the custom of asking money, gifts, and food as an act of charity, very popular in past centuries. Today the children are in charge of the tradition, performing the procession on St. Martin’s Eve and carrying candles or lanterns made of paper, pumpkins, or cucumbers carved like masks. After performing a rich repertoire of traditional songs, stories, and religious songs, children receive sweets and coins. Often the procession is led by a man on horseback dressed like St. Martin, passing in front of every house.

In the United Kingdom, there is a particular folk belief surrounding the weather on Saint Martin’s Day. It is believed that if it is cold on Saint Martin’s Day, then the winter will be mild but if it is warm, then an icy cold winter will follow. There is often a snap of warmer weather around Saint Martin’s Day that is called Martin’s Summer, similar to the concept of an Indian summer in North America. This is true in Latin America as well:   Verão de São Martinho or “veranillo de San Martín”.

 

Saint Martin’s Day throughout Europe 

The St. Martin's procession is very important in Estonia, where young people in masks and costumes move from farm to farm, singing songs, telling jokes and wishing the families good luck for crops, livestock, and relatives, in return for sweets and fruit. This practice is considered a remnant of ancestor worship. The procession is made up mainly of young males masked as bears, goats, and sheep, and traditionally includes at least one disguised woman. 

On St. Martin's Day, children in the southern and north-western parts of the Netherlands, and the Catholic areas of Germany and Austria, still participate in paper lantern processions. 

In the east part of the Belgian province of East-Flanders (Aalst) and the west part of West Flanders (Ypres), traditionally children receive presents from St. Martin on November 11, instead of from Saint Nicholas on December 6 or Santa Claus on December 25. They also have lantern processions, for which children make lanterns out of beets. 

In Portugal, where the saint's day is celebrated across the country, it is common for families and friends to gather around the fire in reunions called “magustos”, where they typically eat roasted chestnuts and drink wine, “jeropiga” (drink made of grape must and firewater) and “aguapé”. 

Saint Martin of the Grapes 

In folk Catholicism, Saint Martin is accredited for bringing different varieties of wine grapes throughout central and southern Europe. In Croatia, the Feast Day of Martinje features a ceremonial blessing of wine by a figure in folk costume donning the gear of a bishop. Flanked by musicians, the “bishop” performs a ceremony of “baptism,” declaring the wine mature and properly fit for consumption.

Saint Martin is also credited with introducing the Chenin blanc grape varietal to France, as well as having a prominent role in spreading wine-making throughout the Touraine region and facilitating the planting of many vines. Most of the white wine of western Touraine and Anjou is made from Chenin blance, and to be the Patron Saint of wine in France is not a light matter! 

 

Saint Martin in History 

Unlike some folk saints, Martin was a historical personage. Martin of Tours was born in 316 C.E. in Savaria in the Diocese province of Pannonia, which is modern-day Szombathely, Hungary. This was during the late Roman empire. His parents were Pagan Roman. His father served as a senior officer in the Imperial Horse Guard unit of the Roman army under Emperor Julian. In later years he was stationed at Ticinum (now Pavia), in northern Italy. This is where Martin grew up. 

His life was recorded by a contemporary biographer, Sulpicius Severus, who knew him personally. This biography expresses an intimate closeness the 4th-century Christian felt with the Devil in all his disguises and has many accounts of miracles. These include casting out devils, raising the paralytic and the dead as well as turning back the flames from a house while Martin was burning down the Roman temple it adjoined, deflecting the path of a felled sacred pine and the healing power of a letter written from Martin.

At the age of ten, he attended the Christian church against the wishes of his parents. Christianity had been made a legal religion in 313 in the Roman Empire. While significantly more adherents existed in the Eastern Empire, where it originated, Christianity was far from accepted amongst the higher echelons of society.  Among members of the army, the worship of Mithras was much stronger. Although the conversion of the Emperor Constantine gave great energy to the spread of the religion, it was still a minority faith.

Martin was pressed into service in the Roman army during the 4th century at the age of 15. At the age of 18 around 334 or 354, he was stationed at Ambianensium civitas or Samarobriva in Gaul (now Amiens, France). Later his unit was stationed at Milan and is also recorded at Trier, it is likely to have been part of the elite cavalry bodyguard of the Emperor, which accompanied him on his travels around the Empire.

Here he became a Centurian. One day, while riding his horse, he chanced upon a near-naked beggar and cut his cloak in half to give the poor man a covering. That night he had a dream in which the beggar appeared to him as Jesus. 

There is some controversy concerning how long he served in the army. A term such as his would have been standardly prescribed at 25 years and it is very likely that he served this full-term considering the abundance of events which occurred while he was in service. It also widely accepted that his biographer, Sulpicius, intended to save face among conscientious objectors and opposers to violence, and therefore wrote that Martin’s Service was much shorter even in the face of historical events which took place many years later. In fact, Martin was still in Service when Ceasar Julian (Julian the Apostate) acceded to the throne. This would have put Martin at age 45.  

When he was 20 (some say 18), Martin fought in a battle which successfully stopped a Teutonic invasion. He was brought before Emperor Julian to claim his reward. However, Martin refused his bonus and instead declared his service to Christ rather than to the Empire. He also declared it unlawful to fight. He was charged with cowardice and jailed. In response to the charge, he volunteered to go unarmed to the front of the troops. His superiors planned to take him up on the offer, but before they could, the invaders sued for peace. The battle never occurred, and Martin was released from military service. As a convert to Christianity, he was baptized by a monk.  

Martin declared his vocation and made his way to the city of Caesarodunum (now Tours), where he became a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers, a chief proponent of Trinitarian Christianity. He opposed the Arianism of the Imperial Court. When Hilary was forced into exile Martin returned to Italy. According to Sulpicius Severus, he converted disciples on the way and confronted the Devil himself. Having heard in a dream a summons to revisit his home, Martin crossed the Alps. There he converted his mother and several others, although his father vehemently opposed. While here he took sides against the Arians with so much zeal that he was publicly scourged and forced to leave. When leaving he was confronted by the Arian archbishop of Milan, Auxentius, who expelled him from the region. Martin then decided to seek shelter on the island then called Gallinaria, now Isola d'Albenga, in the Ligurian Sea. Here he lived the solitary life of a hermit.

With the return of Hilary in 361, Martin joined him and established a hermitage nearby, which soon attracted converts and followers. The crypt under the parish church (not the current Abbey Chapel) reveals traces of a Roman villa, probably part of the bath complex, which had been abandoned before Martin established himself there.  

In 371 C.E. Martin was ordained bishop of Tours. He had been drawn to Tours via trickery.  He was urged to come to minister to someone sick and was instead brought to the church, where he reluctantly allowed himself to be consecrated bishop. According to one version, he was so unwilling to be made bishop that he hid in a barn full of geese, but their cackling at his intrusion gave him away to the crowd. This would account for complaints by a few that his appearance was too disheveled, but the critics were hugely outnumbered by supporters. Due to this legend, roast goose is a popular food served on Saint Martin’s Day in many countries.  

 

An Antique depiction of the infamous Mother Goose from popular children's Fairy Tales.

The Good Fortune Goose 

The relationship between the feast of the Saint and the goose goes back to medieval times. The first association appears in iconography in 1171. Many believe that the cult of Saint Martin the former soldier bears traces of a much older devotional cult to the Roman god Mars. The end of the farming season in ancient Rome was commemorated with sacrifices of geese, a bird sacred to Mars. Archaeological excavations of graves dating from Roman-occupied Gaul have revealed that geese were buried with warriors.

The goose served as a rich reserve of fat and protein during the winter. The Egyptians raised this bird, while the Greeks, as described by Homer in the Iliad, used goose as a childhood companion and guardian. The goose became especially important for the Romans. Geese were put as guardians at the temple of the goddess Juno, in the Capitol. During the Battle of the Allia and the sack of Rome by the Gauls in 390 BC, these very birds, according to the legend, prevented the Capitol from being taken by surprise by the Gallic tribes, by making a great uproar.

The further spread of the goose was due to the Jewish community. Jewish peoples maintained a religious prohibition on pork, so they prepared goose salami and ham. After the expulsion of the Jewish diaspora from Spain, England, France, and Germany, between the fifteenth and sixteenth century, they moved to the other territories over Europe, bringing with them the culinary traditions of goose meat. 

Eating goose became common in the late autumn, just near the feast of St. Martin, as it was the time of slaughter. In addition, the farmers paid the tributes to the nobles mainly using the products of the earth including geese. With the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the period of winter rest for fields and farmers, their servants and maids received also their annual wage in the form of growing flock.

 The goose has always been a good omen. There are infamous folk sayings all over Europe which indicate that the absence of goose meat on Saint Martin’s Day will cause ill fortune, or at least a lack of good luck, in the coming year.  

Saint Martin’s Adventure’s Continued  

In the are of Marmoutier he founded a monastery (Majus Monasterium) which faces Tours from the opposite shore of the Loire. Here Martin and some of the monks who followed him built cells of wood while others lived in caves dug out of the rock. Martin introduced a rudimentary parish system and once a year, as bishop, he visited each of his parishes, traveling on foot, by donkey or by boat. He continued to set up monastic communities and extended his bounds to distant places. 

Word soon got around of Martin’s devotion and spirit of service. He was said to have dedicated himself to converting others through peaceful means. He was also ordained an exorcist and went about the countryside expelling spirits, trying to dissuade the polytheistic Gauls from their ancestral practices. But one instance at least turned into a victory for the Gauls, according to Celtic studies scholar W.Y. Evans-Wentz:

Saint Martin tried to destroy a sacred pine tree in the diocese of Tours by telling the people there was nothing Divine in it. The people agreed to let it be cut down on the condition that the Saint should receive its great trunk on his head as it fell, and the tree was not cut down. 

Martin was so dedicated to the freeing of prisoners that when authorities, even emperors, heard he was coming, they refused to see him because they knew he would request mercy for someone and they would be unable to refuse.

 

  Martin died in Gaul (central France) in 397

St. Martin was known for his humility and acts of charity, but also for his strength and power. During the Middle Ages, the cult of Saint Martin of Tours spread throughout Europe and due to his examples of kindness, humility, and charity, he became known as a powerful intercessor and benefactor to those in need.

St. Martin's popularity can be partially attributed to his adoption by successive royal houses of France throughout history. Many rulers and leaders throughout history have accredited Saint Martin of Tours with their successes including victory over enemies. 

The part of his cloak which he kept for himself became the famous relic preserved in the oratory of the Merovingian kings of the Franks at the Marmoutier Abbey near Tours. During the Middle Ages, the supposed relic of St. Martin’s miraculous cloak, (cappa Sancti Martini) was carried by the king even into battle and used as a holy relic upon which oaths were sworn. 

His shrine in Tours became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The Abbey at Tours was one of the most prominent and influential establishments in medieval France. 

When Bishop Perpetuus took office at Tours in 461, the little chapel over Martin's grave, built in the previous century by Martin's immediate successor, Bricius, was no longer sufficient for the crowd of pilgrims it was already drawing. A larger basilica was built. Martin's body was taken from the simple chapel at his hermitage in Tours and his sarcophagus was reburied behind the high altar of the new basilica. A large block of marble was placed above the tomb, the gift of bishop Euphronius of Autun. This rendered it visible to the faithful gathered behind the high altar. 

In later times the abbey was destroyed by fire on several occasions and ransacked by Norman Vikings in 853 and again in 903. It burned once more in 994 and was rebuilt by Hervé de Buzançais (treasurer of Saint Martin). This effort took 20 years to complete. Expanded to accommodate the crowds, the shrine of St. Martin of Tours became a major stopping-point on pilgrimages. 

In 1453 the remains of Saint Martin were transferred to a magnificent new reliquary donated by Charles VII of France and Agnes Sorel.

The basilica was sacked by the Protestant Huguenots in 1562. It was disestablished during the French Revolution. It was deconsecrated, used as a stable, then utterly demolished. Its dressed stones were sold in 1802 after two streets were built across the site, to ensure the abbey would not be reconstructed.

After the radical Paris Commune of 1871, there was a resurgence of conservative Catholic piety, and the church decided to build a basilica to St. Martin. They selected Victor Laloux as the architect. He eschewed Gothic for a mix of Romanesque and Byzantine, sometimes defined as neo-Byzantine. The new Basilique Saint-Martin was erected on a portion of its former site, which was purchased from the owners. Started in 1886, the church was consecrated 4 July 1925.

Martin's renewed popularity in France was related to his promotion as a military saint during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. During the military and political crisis of the Franco-Prussian war, Napoleon III's Second Empire collapsed. After the surrender of Napoleon to the Prussians after the Battle of Sedan in September 1870, a provisional government of national defense was established, and France's Third Republic was proclaimed. Paris was evacuated due to the advancing enemy and for a brief time, Tours (September–December 1870) became the effective capital of France.

With the government's relocation to Tours during the Franco-Prussian War, 1870, numerous pilgrims were attracted to St. Martin’s tomb. The popular devotion to St. Martin was also associated with the nationalistic devotion to the Sacred Heart. The flag of Sacre-Coeur had been placed overnight in St. Martin’s tomb before being taken into battle on October 9, 1870. The banner read "Heart of Jesus Save France" and on the reverse side Carmelite nuns of Tours embroidered "Saint Martin Protect France”. As the French army was victorious in Patay, many among the faithful took the victory to be the result of Saint Martin’s intercession. Popular hymns of the 1870s developed the theme of national protection under the cover of Martin's cloak, the "first flag of France".

During the 1870s, the procession to St. Martin's tomb at Tours became a display of ecclesiastical and military cooperation. Army officers in full uniform acted as military escorts, symbolically protecting the clergy and clearing the path for them. Anti-clerics viewed the staging of public religious processions as a violation of civic space This period marks the beginning of pronounced tension and debate between different factions of France with conservative secularism at the heart of the matter. This debate and controversy in France continue to this day and now extends to public worship including Islamic prayer and the wearing of religious symbols such as the Christian cross.  

St. Martin’s popularity was renewed during the First World War. Anticlericalism declined, and priests served in the French forces as chaplains. More than 5,000 of them died in the war. In 1916, Assumptionists organized a national pilgrimage to Tours that attracted people from all of France. The devotion to St. Martin was amplified in the dioceses of France, where special prayers were offered to the patron Saint. When the armistice was signed on Saint Martin’s Day, 11 November 1918, the French people saw it was a sign of his intercession in the affairs of France. 

During the nineteenth-century French people, influenced by secularism, agnosticism, and anti-clericalism, left the church in great numbers. As Martin was a common man's Saint, the devotion to him was an exception to this trend. For men serving in the military especially, Martin of Tours was presented by the Catholic Right as the masculine model of principled behavior. He was a brave fighter, knew his obligation to the poor, shared his goods, performed his required military service, followed legitimate orders, and respected secular authority. The popularity of Saint Martin has been preserved in this way among other small sects. He remains an exception to the rule in a culture that prides itself on secularism and pragmatism. 

 

~Blessings~