On Chapels and Geese: The Feast of St. Martin of Tours
Roundel with Saint Martin and the Beggar, German, c. 1490-1500, from the Met Cloisters
The story of the West is inextricably tied up with the story of the Christian Church and of her saints. Investigations and inquiries into the most seemingly commonplace phrases or events tend to unearth, somewhere along the way, a link with this Christian past. St. Martin of Tours is, perhaps, one of the most striking examples of this, with his life and legends providing not only an example to the Church, but also influencing our public holidays, language, and even diet to this day.
Today, November 11th, marks the feast of St. Martin of Tours, born in the early fourth century in what is now Hungary. As he was the son of a veteran, St. Martin found himself conscripted into the Roman army, and would eventually be stationed in Gaul. Contrary to the wishes of his pagan father, St. Martin became a catechumen and, two years after his baptism, sought a release from his military obligation, saying, “I am a soldier of Christ: it is not lawful for me to fight.” This plea initially earned him a stay in prison, but, according to Sulpicius Severus, his biographer, on the day after St. Martin’s impassioned plea, the enemy surrendered and sent ambassadors to treat for peace.
Following this incident, St. Martin left his military service behind. He was eventually made a deacon by St. Hilary of Poitiers, and established a monastery. Some years later, the people of Tours sought after St. Martin to be their bishop, but, as they had little success in extracting him from his monastery, one of the citizens pretended that his wife was ill, and so tricked St. Martin into journeying to the city where he would then serve as bishop for more than twenty years until his death in 397.
St. Martin’s refusal to fight and the subsequent close of the conflict on the following day may have made his feast especially favored for signing peace treaties. There have been several treaties signed on November 11th, though it’s difficult to say whether or not they were in memory of the saint who laid down his arms or a simple result of the multiplicity of wars over many centuries. Either way, the armistice ending the First World War was signed on November 11, 1918, and so the feast of St. Martin the soldier is now known as Veterans’ Day.
There are a number of stories and miracles attributed to St. Martin, many of which can be found in the Vita sancti Martini of Sulpicius Severus. The most famous of these is likely the story of the cloak, in which St. Martin is said to have cut his cloak in half upon encountering a beggar in need of clothing in the middle of winter. The following night, he had a dream in which he saw Our Lord himself wearing the half of St. Martin’s cloak that he had given to the beggar, serving as an illustration of the words of Matthew 25. The portion of the cloak belonging to St. Martin was said to have been kept and treasured as a relic, sometimes accompanying armies into battle to assure success. The small churches built to house the halved cloak (Latin: capella) on its travels also became known as capella, which came through French into English as “chapel.” The word “chaplain” shares a similar etymology, finding its origin in the title of the priest responsible for accompanying St. Martin’s cloak.
Another popular legend, though not one recounted in Sulpicius Severus’ Vita, is that of St. Martin hiding in a pen of geese as he seeks to evade the people of Tours in their attempt to make him bishop. This proved to be less than successful, as the indignant cackling of the geese at the presence of an intruder gave him away. As a result, geese (or other fowl) are traditionally eaten on St. Martin’s Day. As it falls at the end of harvest, St. Martin’s Day (or Martinmas) became “the most common, and almost universal, harvest and thanksgiving celebration in medieval times” (Francis X. Weiser, Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs). Following the Reformation, the custom of eating goose on Martinmas continued in even Reformed Holland, from which the Pilgrims sailed in 1620, bound for North America. When they celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1621, four men from the Plymouth Plantation set out in search of the foods they had become accustomed to eating at the harvest festival: geese and other fowl, giving rise to our current tradition of a Thanksgiving dinner centered around a turkey.
St. Martin was an immensely popular saint, even by medieval standards. Lections appointed for his feast appear across the earliest strata of extant Western lectionaries, some dating from no more than two hundred years after his death. His feast was still universal in the Western Church at the close of the Middle Ages, with even the singing of the Gloria in excelsis appointed for his feast in a substantial number of late medieval missals. In 1483, on the great feast of St. Martin of Tours, Hans and Margaret Luther would bring their newborn son to be baptized, and would name him after this remarkable saint. The child, of course, would become even more well-known than his renowned namesake. Still another child, the son of Paul and Euphemia Chemnitz, would likewise be baptized on or around 11 November 1522, and named after the bishop of Tours.
The Gospel appointed for St. Martin of Tours in medieval and Lutheran usage is from Luke 12, a reading which suits well the life of St. Martin of Tours, the loyal servant of God, and also hews closely to the eschatological tone of these last few Sundays after Trinity:
“Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
Then Peter said to Him, “Lord, do You speak this parable only to us, or to all people?” And the Lord said, “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his master will make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all that he has.”