MARTIN OF TOURS, SAINT: Bishop of Tours; b. at Sabaria (perhaps the modern 86,rvtir in Hungary, 80 m. s. of Vienna) in 316 or 317; d. at Candes in Gaul Nov. 11 of one of the years 397-401. He came of a Roman family of pagan faith, and was educated at Pavia; he early came under the influence of Christianity, was a catechumen at ten years of age, and was baptized at eighteen. From his fifteenth to his twentieth year he served as a soldier in Gaul. Within a few years after leaving military service, Martin went to Hilary of Poitiers and was made an exorcist. Soon after, on returning home, he suffered scourging at the hands of the Arians on account of his orthodoxy and thus gained the title of confessor. His orthodoxy resulted later (356) in his expulsion from Milan. After living as a hermit for a time, he returned to Hilary in Gaul, and about 370 gathered a company of monks near Poitiers, probably the first monastic establishment of the West. In 371 or 372, he was elected bishop of Tours, and established a second convent at what is now Marmoutier, where he built a church and gathered eighty monks around him. Martin acquired renown as a miracle-worker, and his zealous Evangelical activity met great success in spreading the Christian faith into the surrounding country.
On the occasion of an interview about 384 with the Emperor Maximus, Martin interceded unsuccessfully in behalf of the followers of Priscillian (q.v.), not out of sympathy with them but because of his strong sense of justice. Martin was professedly a man of practical life and held a simple faith resting upon trinitarian symbolism, the worship of relics and the revelations of good and evil spirits. While his predilections for monastic asceticism blinded him to the requirements of the commonly accepted rules of life, he at the same time advocated a gospel of service, in sharp Con. trast with the quiet life of contemplation followed by the Oriental hermits. As the molder of the popular faith of the Frankish people, Martin has become their patron saint and has made Tours a popular goal of pilgrimage. To his name was given a prominent place in the saint worship of the Middle Ages and it entered largely into the epic and legendary lore of both the French and the German language- [The most famous story concerning him is that while yet a catechumen and a young soldier he was stationed at Amiens, and there on an uncommonly severe day of midwinter encountered a poor man without clothes. Martin himself had 012 only
his single military cloak and his arms. He cut his cloak in two with his sword and gave half to the beggar. In recognition of this deed Christ appeared to him the next night clad in the half cloak he had given, and he heard Christ say to the attendant angels, " Martin gave me this cloakl "]Bibliography: The early life by Sulpicius Severna, ed. Harm, is in CSEL, vol. i.; a later account, dating from about 475 A.D., is vol. xvi. of CSEL, and is also in MGR, Auct. ant., iv. 1 (1881), 293-370; the working over of these by Gregory-of Tours, ed B. Kruech, is in MGR., Script. rer. Merov., i (1885 ), 584-662. A large list of literature is given in Potthast, Wepuoeiser, pp. 1459-61. Among the more recent accounts may be named: A. Du puy, Hsatoirs de S. Martin . . . de Tours, Schaffhausen, 1855; J. H. Reinkens, Martin von Tours, Breslau, 1866; F. Chamsrd, Saint Martin et eon monaat~rs de Lipupe, Poitiers, 1873; J. Rabory, Vie de S. Martin, ap6tre des Gaul". Abbeville, 1894; the lives by A. Lecoy de la Marche, Paris, 1895, and H. Bas, ib., 1897; DCB, iii. 838-845. To these are to be added the notices in J. H. Newman, Historical Sketches, vol. iii,, ".Martin and Maximus." 185-210, London, 1873; A. angnan, 2tudes our la civilisation françaiss, vol. i., Paris, 1899; and C. A. Bernoulli, Die Heiligen der Merovinper, Tübingen, 1900; also J. G. Bulliot and F. Thiollier, La Mission et is cults de S. Martin d'apr& l" 1_pendea populairea, Paris, 1892.
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