medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
According to his student and biographer Sulpicius Severus, Martin (d. ca. 397; in Eastern-rite churches also Martin the Merciful) was a Pannonian who entered the Roman army at the age of fifteen and who was discharged at the age of twenty, two years after his baptism. It was while he was still a soldier that, in easily the most famous of the incidents related about him, he divided his cloak in order to give half to a shivering beggar outside the city gate of Amiens. Still according to Sulpicius, whose Vita of Martin (BHL 5610, 5610b) is greatly influenced by Athanasius' of Vita of St. Anthony of Egypt, after leaving military service Martin visited Poitiers, whose bishop St. Hilary ordained him exorcist. Returning to his parents in Pannonia, he was able to convert his mother to Christianity but not his father. In Milan his opposition to Arian Christianity caused him to be forced out of the city by its bishop Auxentius. Martin then established a monastery on the island of Gallinara in the Ligurian Sea and remained there until Hilary's return in 361 from imperially imposed exile in Phrygia enabled his own return to Poitiers. With Hilary's permission he founded and directed a monastery in an unpeopled area in the vicinity that is now Ligugé in Vienne. Martin was elected bishop of Tours in 370/71. In that office he is said to have continued to practice an ascetic lifestyle, to have been a thaumaturge, and to have prescribed for his clergy a monastic education.
Early witnesses to Martin's cult include Sts. Paulinus of Nola, Gregory of Tours, and Venantius Fortunatus as well as the poet Paulinus of Petricordia, author of a metrical Vita of Martin in six books (BHL 5617).
In the Roman Calendar and in other calendars influenced by Roman practice today (11. November) is the feast day of St. Martin of Tours. Byzantine-Rite churches celebrate him on 12. November, the day under which he is entered in the originally tenth-century Synaxary of Constantinople.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Martin of Tours:
a) as depicted (at far left) in the heavily restored later sixth-century mosaics (ca. 561) in the nave of Ravenna's basilica di Sant' Apollinare Nuovo:
http://tinyurl.com/pn7kg4z
b) as depicted (at right, restoring a dead man to life) in the later tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, Vat. gr. 1613, p. 176):
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1613/0198
http://tinyurl.com/hyrd2vx
c) as portrayed (dividing his cloak) on one of the very late eleventh-century capitals in the cloister (consecrated, 1100) of the abbaye de Saint-Pierre at Moissac:
http://p2.storage.canalblog.com/28/53/610887/78802475_o.jpg
d) as depicted (at center in lower register, betw. Sts. Lawrence of Rome and Leonard of Noblac) in a twelfth-century icon of Byzantine origin or inspiration in the Holy Monastery of the God-trodden Mount Sinai in St. Catherine (South Sinai governorate):
http://www.forum-orthodoxe.com/images/stmartindetours.jpg
e) as depicted (lower register, second from left) in a somewhat restored seemingly earlier twelfth-century mosaic in the diaconicon of the basilica (ex-cattedrale) di Santa Maria Assunta on Torcello:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/42858885@N00/14411019472
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/25a2z44
f) as depicted in an historiated initial "I" in an earlier twelfth-century legendary from the abbey of Cîteaux (betw. 1101 and 1133; Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 641, fol. 113r):
http://tinyurl.com/2e7tzpv
g) as depicted (at far left) in the late twelfth-century mosaics (ca. 1182) in the sanctuary of the basilica cattedrale di Santa Maria Nuova in Monreale:
http://tinyurl.com/oajgqn3
h) as depicted (dividing his cloak) in one of four panels of a full-page illumination in the late twelfth-century so-called Bible of Saint Bertin (ca. 1190-1200; Den Haag, KB, ms. 76 F 5, fol. 37v, sc. 1A):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_76f5%3A037v_min_a1
i) as portrayed in high relief in two locations on the right portal of the late twelfth or earlier thirteenth-century south porch of the basilique cathédrale Notre-Dame in Chartres:
1) On the right jambs (at left; at right, St. Jerome):
http://tinyurl.com/ostx422
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/nv2of6k
2) On the tympanum (dividing his cloak):
http://tinyurl.com/ou6mnb5
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/nqfmnwc
j) as portrayed (scenes from his Vita) in four earlier thirteenth-century reliefs on the facade of the cathedral dedicated to him in Lucca:
http://tinyurl.com/27df48s
http://tinyurl.com/26rpoeb
http://tinyurl.com/2agms7o
http://tinyurl.com/29zfghw
There are detail views on this page:
http://tinyurl.com/32c6gkz
k) as depicted in the early thirteenth-century Life of St. Martin window (bay 7; ca. 1215) in the cathédrale Saint-Étienne in Bourges:
http://www.medievalart.org.uk/bourges/07_pages/Bourges_Bay_07_key.htm
Detail view (dividing his cloak):
http://www.medievalart.org.uk/bourges/07_pages/Bourges_Bay_07_panel_01.htm
l) as depicted in the earlier thirteenth-century Life of St. Martin window (bay 102; ca. 1215-1225; restored, 1922 and 1995-1996) in the basilique cathédrale Notre-Dame in Chartres:
http://tinyurl.com/na6elhu
Detail view (dividing his cloak):
http://tinyurl.com/q5xexrh
m) as depicted (cutting his cloak) in an historiated initial "I" in an earlier thirteenth-century copy of part of the _Magnum legendarium Austriacum_ (ca. 1236-1250; Zwettl, Stiftsbibliothek, cod. 14, fol. 149r):
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7002565.JPG
n) as depicted in the earlier thirteenth-century Life of St. Martin window (bay 102b; ca. 1240) in the cathédrale Saint-Maurice in Angers:
http://www.medievalart.org.uk/Angers/Bay_102b/Angers_Bay102b_Key.htm
o) as depicted (enthroned) in a mid-thirteenth-century pontifical from Mainz (betw. 1249 and 1251; Paris, BnF, Ms. Latin 946, fol. Av):
http://tinyurl.com/oc4xfyy
p) as depicted (dividing his cloak) in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 156r):
http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/ds/huntington/images//000913A.jpg
q) as depicted (dividing his cloak) in the late thirteenth-century Livre d'images de Madame Marie (ca. 1285-1290; Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 89r):
http://tinyurl.com/pn6c779
r) as depicted (dividing his cloak) in an early fourteenth-century fresco in the cathédrale Saint-Gatien in Tours:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/biron-philippe/7585653434/
s) as depicted (scenes from his Vita) by Simone Martini in a series of early fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1312 and ca. 1318) in the cappella di San Martino in the lower church of the basilica di San Francesco in Assisi:
http://www.wga.hu/art/s/simone/3assisi/00view3.jpg
http://www.wga.hu/art/s/simone/3assisi/00view2.jpg
Detail views with captions:
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/s/simone/3assisi/index.html
t) as depicted (at top right in the major panels) by Giovanni di Bonino, perh. working from a design by Simone Martini, in one of the three earlier fourteenth-century windows (after 1312) in the cappella di San Martino in the lower church of the basilica di San Francesco in Assisi:
http://www.wga.hu/art/s/simone/3assisi/scenes/99window.jpg
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/ou2bpo5
u) as portrayed (dividing his cloak) in an earlier fourteenth-century elephant ivory statuette of German origin (ca. 1320; Köln or Mainz) in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London:
http://tinyurl.com/nsnqkgh
http://tinyurl.com/nvzoqfg
v) as depicted (dividing his cloak) in an earlier fourteenth-century French-language legendary of Parisian origin with illuminations attributed to the Fauvel Master (ca. 1327; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 183, fol. 165v):
http://tinyurl.com/nnuec2h
w) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Theodore the Stoudite) in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/yzgnrt2
x) as portrayed in relief (consecration as bishop; dividing his cloak) on a mid-fourteenth-century polychromed ivory diptych (ca. 1340-1350) of northern French or Flemish origin in the Cleveland Museum of Art:
http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1971.103
y) as depicted (at lower right; dividing his cloak) in the mid-fourteenth-century San Martino altarpiece (seemingly later 1340s) from Oristano in the Antiquarium Arborense - Museo archeologico Giuseppe Pau in Oristano:
http://tinyurl.com/nzc2acc
z) as depicted (cutting his cloak) in a mid-fourteenth-century copy, from the workshop of Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston, of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1348; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 300r):
http://tinyurl.com/pua5rvp
aa) as depicted (dividing his cloak) in a mid-fourteenth-century vault painting (ca. 1350) in Skibby kirke at Skibby (Lejre kommune) in Sjælland:
http://tinyurl.com/ng5ljcp
bb) as portrayed in a late fourteenth-century reliquary bust (from Avignon?; restored in the twentieth century) in the Musée du Louvre in Paris:
http://tinyurl.com/27ulvqo
https://i84.servimg.com/u/f84/11/64/82/51/buste_12.jpg
cc) as depicted (at top in the right margin; demanding a steep price of Clovis for the return of a horse) in the numerous pen-and-ink illustrations in the margins of an early fifteenth-century copy of the _Chronicon a mundi creatione ad annum 1220_, an abbreviation and continuation of the _Pantheon_ of Godfrey of Viterbo (ca. 1400-1415; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 4935, fol. 8v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8455934w/f26.image.zoom
dd) as depicted in the early fifteenth-century Châteauroux Breviary (ca. 1414; Châteauroux, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 404v):
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht2/IRHT_054268-p.jpg
ee) as depicted (at left; at right, brigands) in an earlier fifteenth-century embroidery of southern Netherlandic origin (ca. 1430) in The Cloisters Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York:
http://tinyurl.com/phhr5ff
Expandable views of other embroideries of St. Martin from this set can be accessed from the bottom of this page:
http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/life-of-saint-martin
ff) as portrayed (dividing his cloak) in a mid-fifteenth-century relief on the town hall of Fritzlar (Lkr. Schwalm-Eder Kreis) in Hessen:
http://tinyurl.com/z5dzmj4
gg) as depicted in grisaille (dividing his cloak) by Jean le Tavernier in the mid-fifteenth-century Hours of Philip of Burgundy (ca. 1451-1460; Den Haag, KB, ms. 76 F 2, fol. 264v):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_76f2%3A264v_min
hh) as depicted (upper right; dividing his cloak) by Girolamo di Giovanni of Camerino in a later fifteenth-century triptych (ca. 1473) in the chiesa di San Martino Vescovo in Monte San Martino (MC) in the Marche:
http://tinyurl.com/q74m33o
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/ownsr2h
ii) as depicted (dividing his cloak) in a later fifteenth-century vault painting (ca. 1474) in Jetsmark kirke in Pandrup (Jammerbugt kommune) in Nordjylland:
http://tinyurl.com/pu5sh97
jj) as depicted (dividing his cloak and other scenes from his Vita) by the Master of the Galletti Chapel in a later fifteenth-century painted altarpiece (ca. 1475-1480) in the crypt of the basilica cattedrale di San Martino in Belluno:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2397/2177982293_8c1e640b3d_b.jpg
kk) as portrayed (the beggar grasping his not yet divided cloak) in a later fifteenth-century statue (ca. 1475-1480) of German origin in the Seattle Art Museum:
http://www.wga.hu/art/m/master/zunk_ge/zunk_ge8/5martin.jpg
ll) as depicted in two late fifteenth-century panel paintings (ca. 1490) on either side of a wing from a dismembered altarpiece in the Magyar Nemzeti Galéria in Budapest:
1) Dividing his cloak:
http://www.wga.hu/art/m/master/zunk_hu/zunk_hu1/06martin.jpg
2) Celebrating Mass in shabby dress:
http://www.wga.hu/art/m/master/zunk_hu/zunk_hu1/04martin.jpg
mm) as portrayed in high relief (dividing his cloak) in a late fifteenth- or very early sixteenth-century limestone sculpture (ca. 1490-1500) in the Musée Saint-Martin in Tours:
http://tinyurl.com/hzkbk7u
http://tinyurl.com/jlqpn45
nn) as depicted (center panel; dividing his cloak) by Bartolomeo Vivarini in his late fifteenth-century Triptych of St. Martin (1491) in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo:
http://passaggioadovest.ilserio.it/immagini/Trittico.JPG
oo) as portrayed in high relief (dividing his cloak) in a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century sculpture (ca. 1500; from Bjæverskov kirke in Sjælland) in the Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen:
http://tinyurl.com/qx7oqbr
pp) as depicted (dividing his cloak) in an embroidered early sixteenth-century cope shield (betw. 1500 and 1509) in the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht:
http://tinyurl.com/na2mvlc
qq) as depicted (dividing his cloak) in the early sixteenth-century vault paintings (ca. 1510) in Sæby kirke (Frederikshavn kommune) in Nordjylland:
http://aalborgstift.dk/assets/kirker/frederikshavn/saeby/1501saeby.jpg
rr) as depicted (dividing his cloak) in an earlier sixteenth-century glass window (ca. 1520) in the cloister of the abbey of Wettingen in Kanton Aargau:
http://tinyurl.com/gr5hpyx
Best,
John Dillon
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