1997/09/01 by Brian Brennan · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Ancient history #Annals #Archaeology #Art #Art history #Asceticism #Battle #Classics #Cult #European Political History Analysis #Historical and Religious Studies of Rome #History #Law #Medieval Literature and History #Patron saint #Pilgrimage #Politics #Procession #Royalist #SAINT #Victory
paper · doi:10.2307/3169453
openalex publication_date 1997/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Statuary groups, countless illustrations, and colorful stained glass all preserve for us the most famous medieval image of the charitable soldier-saint, Martin of Tours (336–397). The young Martin is depicted seated on his horse dividing his soldier's cape to share it with Christ disguised as a freezing beggar at the gate of Amiens. After abandoning the Roman army, Martin became a monk, an ascetic “soldier of Christ,” and was chosen by the people of Tours as their bishop. Renowned in his lifetime as a wonderworker, Martin's tomb remained for centuries an important pilgrimage center. The later Carolingian kings carried a fragment of Martin's cape into battle as a victory-giving talisman, and French monarchs invoked the saint as their patron. Because of its royalist associations, Saint Martin's basilica at Tours was almost completely destroyed in the French Revolution, and subsequently houses and new municipal streets encroached on the sacred space.