SAINT MARTIN THE SAINT OF GALIAS ABOUT SIX THOUSAND TEMPLES IN EUROPE UNDER HIS ADVOCATION I REMEMBER HOW HIS FEAST WAS CELEBRATED IN MEMBIBRE DE LA HOZ SEGOVIA LOS PARRAS WE ARE OF CONVERSWA ASCENDANCE

 

UNDER THE CHLAMIDE OF SAN MARTIN

Today is Saint Martin, the festival of the town of my father Membibre de la Hoz. Sweet chestnuts, puppets, comedies and some dancing. How many towns in Europe are named after this Roman legionnaire from Pannonia? A holy baptizer and Christianizing champion of charity. The one who split his cape with a poor man. With his chlamys we wrap ourselves up and protect ourselves against the gusts. The truth is blowing a good north wind. November in Castilla is the month of the first ice and in December, snowfall.

We know the life of this miracle worker thanks to Sulpicio Severo.

An entire literary tour de force written in the Latin of the Lower Empire. It would be a recurring theme. A century after his death around 390 Venancio Fortunato puts it in verse. He is one of those characters that has generated more literary iconography and imagery. San Martín goes up to the capitals and is sculpted on top of the Romanesque capitals and by one of those miracles of faith the entire geography of the old continent spreads this toponym from England to Germany and Italy or Spain. But he is a French saint. The Saint of Gaul.

In France alone, 3,667 churches bear his name and in Hispania 2,345. The Spanish took the Martinian cult to the other side of the pond and that is why in America the tradition of baptizing towns and new cities with this name is followed to enjoy his patronage. It is known that still a catechumen and defect of the Roman army he got off his horse and split his tunic in two, half he kept for himself and the other half he gave to a poor man. This poor man appeared to him in a dream. Those who guarded weapons and professed the rules of Chivalry entrusted themselves to his patronage. This is how it is consigned in the Amadís de Gaula and Quixote himself.

He loves and do what he wants. There are interpretations for all tastes. Revisionist historians have found in this hidalgo gesture a point of the Priscillianist heresy. What relations did Saint Martin Bishop of Tours have with Prisciliano, the heresiarch from Avila who was martyred in Treves? From virtue to error there is only one step but the one he loves is never wrong. In any case Saint Martin was born in Szombathely (Hungary) the son of a tribune of the Victrix legion by the lords of Pannonia just above the Danube.

Baptized at a very young age, he wanted to be a monk but at the age of 18 he is enrolled in the cavalry. Among the equites or horsemen of the imperial guard. While in Amien, the cape incident occurred. He asks for the absolute and, once licensed, attracted by the fame of holiness of Hilario de Poitiers, he goes to the see of this bishop who ordains him as an exorcist. It is a time like all times of great brawls and confrontations for reasons of religion. After the Milvian Bridge Edict in 318, a large part of the Goths adopted the Arian sect when they converted to Christianity and Saint Hilary himself had to return to Constantinople persecuted by the Arians.

Before long we find him back in Pannonia where he baptizes his own mother and then in Milan. There, with other companions, he founded a monastery and pay attention to the data: In San Martín we are going to find the apex of medieval ideology and militant Christianity. He is half monk, half soldier. His biographers said of this Hungarian soldier that “he was a soldier on the outside, a bishop by obligation and a monk by choice”.

On July 4, 370 he is consecrated bishop of Tours. Soon after, he built the monastery of Marmoutiers. He destroys the pagan temples, cuts down the oaks of the syncretistic cult and baptizes a certain Foedula. He tries to save poor Prisciliano accused of heresy by two Spanish bishops.

This intercession with the Emperor Máximo to spare the life of the famous Spanish ecclesiastic of Galician origin was going to embitter the last years of his life. Did Saint Martin believe in the Gnostic principles and the Manichaean influence of the stars on the life of man as the bishop from Avila preached?

Error and truth meet door to door. Man is cruel and God is merciful. For Prisciliano there was, however, no forgiveness. The disciples of the bishop of Ávila collected the bodies of the heterodox martyr and traveled with him to Galicia to bury him. It is possible that the Jacobean cult has its origin in the philosophical postulates of Prisciliano.

San Martín died in Candés in a beautiful setting on the banks of the Loire.

Soon the fame of his miracles would spread and his tomb would become the object of pilgrimage. The tradition of Jacobean pilgrimages will be based precisely on a saint and a heretic. Saint Martin and the heretic Priscillian. From heroism to failure there is but one step. In any case, the brilliance of the Martinian cult illuminates the entire Middle Ages. We welcome the chlamys of San Martín. in that sense