Old English Lives of St Martin

unknown painter  saint martin and the beggar  wga23843

Hungarian National Gallery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

He wæs geðyldig and eadmod and gemetfæst on eallum his life.

[He was patient, and modest, and humble in all things in his life.]

(Martinmas-homily)

It is hard to overestimate the influence that Martin of Tours (d. 397) had on early medieval conceptions of sainthood. Sulpicius Severus (d. 425) wrote the first biography of his sanctified contemporary and acquaintance, which he expanded with his Dialogi and three Epistulae. In these works—collectively referred to as Martiniana—Sulpicius presents Martin as a devoted missionary miles Christi (‘warrior of Christ’), who can heal both physical and spiritual afflictions while confronting belligerent pagans, corrupt bishops, suspect wildlife, and malicious demons. The portrayal of Martin as an evangelizing ‘confessor’ saint (one sanctified through a pious life rather than a martyr’s death) that was active in the contemplative realm of a monastery as well as the public life of a bishop, provided a popular model for both lay and ecclesiastical communities in England. Martin’s cult was one the oldest, with church dedications stretching from the sixth-century missions on the island and his feast days were among the most prevalent in the early medieval English Sanctorale.

 

pietro bernini san martino divide il mantello col povero 1598 ca napoli s martino

Pietro bernini, san martino divide il mantello col povero, 1598 ca. (napoli, s. martino)

Sailko, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Sulpicius’s works also established a model for subsequent Latin and vernacular hagiographies to follow or reference. Collections of the Sulpician Martiniana, along with later material composed by Paulinus of Périgueux, Venantius Fortunantus, and Gregory of Tours, were gathered into volumes or Martinelli devoted to the saint. Gneuss and Lapidge have identified several Martinelli manuscripts with English provenances, suggesting that the Martiniana were relatively well-known among early English audiences, and the collection’s impact is evident with many Anglo-Latin vitae such as Aldhelm of Malmesbury’s De uirginitate, the Vita S. Cuthberti, Felix’s Vita S. Guthlaci, and Abbo of Fleury’s Passio S. Eadmundi.

In addition to Anglo-Latin retellings of Martin’s life, several Old English accounts of Martin’s life survive, including: the ninth-century Old English Martyrology; an anonymous ninth-century homily for Martinmas; and Ælfric’s two accounts composed at the end of the tenth century. Martin is the only saint that Ælfric commemorated in both his Catholic Homilies and Lives of Saints. The anonymous Martinmas-homily appears to have been Mercian or Northumbrian in origin and is extant in the late tenth-century Vercelli Book (Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS CXVII) as Vercelli XVIII, among its collection of twenty-three homilies and six religious poems; the late tenth-century Blickling Homiliary (Princeton, Scheide Library, MS 71) which incorporated the homily with the title To Sancte Martines Mæssan (‘For the Mass of Saint Martin’) as Homily XVII of its collection; and a third witness for the homily is found in the eleventh-century homiliary, now split between Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 85 + 86. Each recension of the Martinmas-homily varies from the others, illustrating the impact of individual copyists in redirecting or reworking its source narrative to suit their own priorities. Likewise, the Junius copyist’s preference for the anonymous homily over the Ælfric’s—despite copying other Ælfrician homilies in the collection—offers rare insight into eleventh-century editorial decisions.

 

Christi miles sum: pugnare mihi non licet ('I am a soldier of Christ: it is not permitted for me to fight') (Vita S. Martini)

The intended audiences for the Martin’s Lives are not stated, yet the homilies’ placements among other pastoral texts suggests that his biography was suitable for a liturgical contexts (a purpose indicated in the title To Sancte Martines Mæssan) as well as for private contemplation by mixed clerical and lay audiences. As a confessor-saint with strong monastic and military ties, Martin provided an ideal for clerics who could follow his ‘mixed life’ approach as an uncompromising missionary monk-bishop, and for those laymen seeking to live a pious life. His transition from being a soldier in the imperial army to metaphorically ‘soldiering’ for God was particularly poignant for aristocratic audiences mediating the line between fulfilling their obligations as warriors and being dutiful Christians. In the eyes of the anonymous homilist, the distinction between worldly fighter and devotion to God was definite.

Although the Martinmas-homily generally cleaves closely to the Sulpician source, adapting the complex Latin syntax into simple paratactic Old English prose, the author actively reshapes through a programme of omission. This narrative pruning works to depict the phases of Martin’s life in a straightforward spiritual trajectory towards sanctity. After describing Martin’s exemplary childhood, during which characteristics of the future saint are prefigured, the homily moves to describe how Martin’s sanctity develops in the army. The devout lifestyle Martin leads results in his spiritual baptism after he famously bisects his cloak to give to a beggar, an act his physical baptism quickly follows. The homily then proceeds to describe how Martin was ordained by Hilary, at which point Martin is able to heal individuals. Once Martin is elevated to the bishopric of Tours, he undertakes missions to convert towns and cultivate the spiritual wellbeing of larger communities. Finally, Martin’s protection is extended to the universal Christian church, when he acts as a peacemaker between other clerics. Throughout his trials, Martin strives to disavow any connection to the secular world, despite having been a soldier in the imperial Roman army and elevated to the company of the secular aristocracy by his episcopal position. In this development, the saint’s foils are the pagans, who are portrayed as impetuous, bloodthirsty, and hot-headed in contrast to the saint’s steadfast wisdom, pacifism, and humility:

 

Staðolfæst on his wordum and hluttor and clæne on his life and he wæs arfæst and gemetfæst.

[He was steadfast in his words and pure and clean in his life and he was faithful and modest.]

(Martinmas-homily)

 

Instead of a comprehensive picture of Martin’s life, the Martinmas-homily gives select aspects of Martin’s character and accomplishments, specifically his magnanimity as a missionary, healer, and Church leader. Along the way, the homily removes the mild-hearted missionary from metaphorical warrior culture, omitting the Martiniana’s martial imagery and epithets like miles Christi to curate an image of devotion which rejects manifestations of militant Christianity. This characterisation reflects a deep discomfort with Christians implicated in any violent worldly service, while maintaining that devotion to Christ and warrior culture are not compatible.

 

Ne geseah hine nan man nateshwon yrre

ne on mode murcnigende  ne mislice geworhtne

ac on anre anrædnysse æfre wunigende

ofer mannes gemet mid mycelre glædnysse.

[No man ever saw him angry at all,

nor murmuring in mind, nor evilly disposed,

but ever remaining in one steadfastness

above man’s measure with much gladness.]

(Ælfric’s Life of Martin, ll. 308–11)

 

Ælfric’s homiletic and longer prose Lives of Martin provide freer translations of Sulpician Martiniana fashioned with the abbot’s ‘metrical’ or alliterative prose. Where the anonymous Martinmas-homily selectively omits aspects of Martin’s character—especially his role as an exorcist and confrontations with other Christians—the Ælfrician renditions relate as much of Suplicius’ narrative as possible in addition to select episodes from Gregory of Tours’ Decem libri historiarum, like the posthumous contention over ownership of the saint’s remains. Beyond a general programme of abridgement and summarization to condense the full life into a form fit for homiletic dissemination, both works offer similar images of a cool-headed prophetic bishop who can control the natural, communal and spiritual realms. Like anonymous homilist’s Martin, Ælfric’s portrait espouses Christian removal from worldly fixations and violent action. The demons, schismatics, or secular magnates that Martin confronts display erratic mentalities which are juxtaposed with Martin’s levelheadedness and consistency. Yet in rendering as much of the Martinana as possible, Ælfric also depicts Martin with his human flaws and frustrations. The saint’s departure from imperial service is delayed, he occasionally looses his calm in the face of danger, and he sometimes struggles with recalcitrant communities. Ælfric’s Martin might have provided a more approachable model, one who admirably grew above worldly fixations into a pious life, but still had to soldier under his devotion to God:

 

Martinus þa cwæð mid micelre geomerunge

Nædran me gehyrað and men me gehyran nellað.

[Then Martin said with great sadness:

“Snakes hear me, and men will not hear me.”]

(Ælfric’s Life of Martin, ll. 1267–68)

Select Bibliography

Editions

Burton, Philip, ed. and trans. Sulpicius Severus’ Vita Martini (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Chadbon, John N. ‘Oxford, Bodleian Library MSS Junius 85 and 86: An Edition of a Witness to the Old English Homiletic Tradition’, PhD. Dissertation (University of Leeds, 1993).

Mertens, Andre, ed. and trans. The Old English Lives of St Martin of Tours: Edition and Study(Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2017).

Morris, Richard, ed. The Blickling Homilies of the Tenth Century from the Marquis of Lothian’s Unique ms. A.D. 971 (London: EETS, 1880).

Scragg, Donald G., ed. The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).

Szarmach, Paul E., ed. Vercelli Homilies: IX–XXIII (Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1981).

 

Criticism

Aronstam, Robin Ann. ‘The Blickling Homilies: A Reflection of Popular Anglo-Saxon Belief’, in Law, Church, and Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner, ed. Kenneth Pennington and Robert Somerville (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), pp. 271–77.

Dalbey, Marcia. ‘The Good Shepherd and Soldier of God: Old English Homilies on St Martin of Tours’, NM 85 (1984), 422–34.

Damon, John Edward. Soldier Saints and Holy Warriors: Warfare and Sanctity in the Literature of Early England (Hampshire; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003).

Gaites, Judith. ‘Ælfric’s Longer Life of St Martin and its Latin Sources: A Study in Narrative Technique’, Leeds Studies in English 13 (1982), 23–41.

Gerould, Gordon Hall. ‘Ælfric’s Lives of St Martin of Tours’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 24 (1925), 206–10.

Hill, Joyce. ‘The Soldier of Christ in Old English Prose and Poetry’, Leeds Studies in English 12 (1981), 57–80.

Magennis, Hugh. ‘Warrior Saints, Warfare and the Hagiography of Ælfric of Eynsham’, Traditio 56 (2001), 27–51.

McKinley, Allan Scott. ‘The First Two Centuries of Satin Martin of Tours’, Early Medieval Europe 14 (2006), 173–200.

Mullins (Hewish), Juliet. ‘Living on the Edge: A Study of the Translations of the Life of St Martin in Old English, Middle Irish, and Old Norse-Icelandic’, PhD. Dissertation (University College Dublin, 2005).

———. ‘Sulpicius Severus and the Medieval Vita Martini’, Peritia 20 (2008), 28–58.

———. ‘Trouble at the White House: Anglo-Irish Relations and the Cult of St Martin’, in Anglo-Saxon/Irish Relations before the Vikings, ed. James Graham-Campbell and Michael Ryan (Oxford: Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 113–28.

———. ‘La place de Saint Martin dans le monachisme anglo-saxon’, Annales de Bretagne 119:3 (2012), 55–70.

Ogawa, Hiroshi. ‘The Use of Old English Þa in the Ælfrician and Non-Ælfrician Lives of St Martin’, Anglia 114:4 (1996), 456–80.

Olsen, Karin. ‘Beggars’ Saint but no Beggar: Martin of Tours in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints’, Neophilologus 88 (2004), 461–75.

Scragg, Donald G. ‘The Corpus of Anonymous Lives and Their Manuscript Context’, in Holy Men and Holy Women, ed. Szarmach, pp. 209–30.

———. ‘Editing Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies’, Anglia 121:4 (2003), 610–18.

———. ‘A Ninth-Century Old English Homily from Northumbria’, ASE 45 (2016), 39–49.

Szarmach, Paul E. ‘Ælfric Revises: The Lives of Martin and the Idea of the Author’, in Unlocking the Wordhord: Anglo-Saxon Studies in Memory of Edward B. Irving, Jr., ed. Mark C. Amodio and Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe (Toronto; London: University of Toronto Press, 2003), pp. 38–61.

Whatley, E. Gordon. ‘Lost in Translation: Omission of Episodes in Some Old English Prose Saints’ Legends’, ASE 26 (1997), 187–208.

———. ‘Pearls Before Swine: Ælfric, Vernacular Hagiography and the Lay Reader’, in Via Crucis, ed. Hall, pp. 158–84.

———. ‘Hagiography and Violence: Military Men in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints’, in Source of Wisdom: Old English and Early Medieval Latin Studies in Honour of Thomas D. Hill, ed. Charles D. Wright, Frederick M. Biggs, and Thomas N. Hall (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), pp. 217–31.

Wilson, P.A. ‘The Cult of St Martin in the British Isles’, The Innis Review 19 (1968), 129–43.

 

Glenn Cahilly-Bretzin is currently a post-doctoral researcher for The Human Remains: Digital Library of British Mortuary Science and Investigation (UKRI, University of Liverpool) and the project’s ‘Human Remains Digital Library’ (https://hrdl.liverpool.ac.uk/). He has also contributed to the Consolidated Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry (ERC, University of Oxford) ‘Word-Hoard: A Lexicon of English Verse’ (https://clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/wordhord-v2.pdf). In addition to Glenn's work on Old English and Anglo-Latin philology, medieval English hagiography, and medieval textual transmission, his research is increasing considering historical craftspeople.