11 November is St Martin’s Day, or Martinmas, which recalls a former soldier who pursued peace, and also Armistice Day, when the First World War ended. This is the story …
Martin the soldier
Martin was born in the Roman province of Pannonia, probably in AD 316, at Sabaria, which is now called Szombathely in modern Hungary. His father was a Roman army officer, and Martin grew up principally at Ticinum, which is the modern city of Pavia near Milan in northwest Italy. Although his parents were pagan, Martin embraced Christianity while still a boy, against his parents’ wishes, but was later compelled to follow his father into the Roman army. While he was in the Roman army, he was baptised and came to take the Bible very seriously.
Martin and the beggar
While on duty one bitterly cold day near the gate of Amiens in northern France, Martin encountered a poorly clothed beggar. Having nothing else to give him, Martin drew his sword, cut his military cloak in two, and gave half to the man. According to the early biography written by Sulpicius Severus, who knew Martin personally, Martin later dreamed that he saw Christ wearing the piece of cloak he had given away. Martin recalled the words of Jesus, “I needed clothes and you clothed me” in Matthew 25:36, and “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” in Matthew 25:40. Martin realised that he had not simply helped a beggar. In Christian understanding, he had served Christ himself.
Non-violence
After a while, Martin realised that being a Christian, following the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), who instructed us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43–48), and being a soldier did not sit easily on his conscience. His ancient biographer records him telling the Emperor Julian: “I am a soldier of Christ: I am not allowed to fight.” Accused of cowardice, Martin reportedly offered to stand unarmed before the enemy. The expected battle did not take place, and he subsequently left military service and became a proponent of non-violence. His Christian pro-life views led him to oppose warfare and executions.
Bishop Martin
He was then associated with Hilary of Poitiers, one of the leading Christian bishops of the period. Later, Martin established a monastic community at Ligugé, near Poitiers in western France, which is generally regarded as the earliest monastery in Gaul.
Then, in 371, Martin became missionary Bishop of Tours, in northwest France. A later legend says that Martin only became bishop reluctantly and hid among geese to avoid becoming a bishop, but their honking betrayed him. Martin was an unusual bishop because he kept the austere habits of a monk. He established another monastic community at Marmoutier, outside Tours, which he used as a base to evangelise the area. St Martin is widely credited in France with helping to spread winemaking throughout the region of Touraine.
Opposition to executions
One of the lesser-known episodes in Martin’s life shows his pro-life principles. There was a controversy surrounding Priscillian, a Spanish Christian teacher who was denounced as a heretic at the Council of Zaragoza in 380. Priscillian was sentenced to death, and although Martin disagreed with Priscillian theologically, Martin also disagreed with the death penalty in principle. However, he was overruled, and Priscillian and several followers were brought before the imperial authorities at Trier and executed in about 385. His intervention failed, but his pro-life stand remains an important early Christian protest against execution.
St Martin
Martin died at Candes in Gaul on 8 November 397. He was buried at Tours on 11 November, and that date became his feast day. He was never formally canonised, but he was recognised as a saint through the continuing devotion of the Church.
Unlike many of the earliest saints, Martin was not a martyr. He became one of the outstanding early Western examples of a “confessor”, someone honoured for the witness and holiness of his life. His shrine at Tours became one of the great pilgrimage centres of medieval Europe, and his image as a mounted soldier dividing his cloak appeared in manuscripts, paintings, statues, and stained glass.
Martin is traditionally regarded as a patron saint of beggars, travellers, innkeepers, winegrowers, and winemakers. He is also considered to be the patron saint of soldiers, despite the fact that his Christian commitment eventually led him to renounce fighting.
Traditions
Across Europe, 11 November became known as St Martin’s Day. In English, St Martin’s Mass became shortened to “Martinmas”, just as Christ’s Mass became Christmas. Many Martinmas traditions arose in different countries. Across mediaeval Europe, Martinmas stood at the transition between harvest and winter. In medieval Britain, Martinmas was an important feasting day at the end of the agricultural year, when people ate goose or beef and celebrated before winter. Martinmas was associated with slaughtering livestock for winter, and “Martinmas beef” was beef salted and preserved for the months ahead.
In parts of Germany, the Netherlands and Flanders, some children still process through dark streets on Martinmas, carrying lanterns and singing songs about Martin, sometimes following a rider portraying him on horseback. Roast goose became a traditional Martinmas meal in Germany, Austria, and Sweden. In winegrowing districts of France and Germany and elsewhere, the feast also became associated with tasting the new wine.
Church dedications
Across Europe, hundreds of churches were dedicated to St Martin. There are cathedrals dedicated to him at Utrecht in the Netherlands, Mainz in Germany, Bratislava and Spiš in Slovakia, Lucca in Italy, and Ypres in Belgium.
There are 179 churches dedicated to St Martin in the Church of England, including the oldest church building in England, in Canterbury, where St Augustine preached when he brought Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons in Kent in the year 597. The Venerable Bede specifically says that this first church in England was dedicated to Martin of Tours. However, more famous now is the present-day St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, which was consecrated in 1726 and celebrates its 300th anniversary in 2026.
Etymology
Martin’s cloak also became attached to a famous explanation for two English words. The surviving portion of the cloak was revered as a relic. Medieval Latin called a cloak a cappa; its shrine became known as a cappella, or “little cloak”, and its custodian as a cappellanus. It is often remarked that, through French, these words gave English the words “chapel” and “chaplain”.
A saint for 11 November
For some 1,500 years, 11 November has commemorated a Roman soldier who embraced non-violence. Then, fittingly, the First World War ended on the Western Front at 11am on St Martin’s Day, 11 November 1918. One place of particularly intense fighting was Ypres, where St Martin’s cathedral was destroyed.
In France, many Catholics who had prayed for the end of the war were quick to attribute the victory to St Martin, the patron saint of soldiers who advocated peace. Immense celebrations were held in Paris and at Martin’s shrine in Tours. A week after the war ended, on 17 November, a large military Mass was held at Tours, which included soldiers from all the allied nations, high-ranking clergy, and French politicians. The flags of the Allies were placed before Martin’s tomb alongside laurel wreaths.
11 November
Thus, the messages of Armistice Day and Martinmas, which both fall on 11 November, have now become entwined. Since 1918, the same date has become associated with the remembrance of those who served in war and with the hope for peace.
Collect
The Anglican collect for St Martin’s Day is:
God all powerful,
who called Martin from the armies of this world
to be a faithful soldier of Christ:
give us grace to follow him
in his love and compassion for the needy,
and enable your Church to claim for all people
their inheritance as children of God;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
