Martin, St, Bishop of Tours, was born at Sabaria in Pannonia about the year 316. He was educated at Pavia, and at the desire of his father, who was a military tribune, entered the army, first under Constantine, and afterwards under Julian the Apostate. The virtues of his life as a soldier are the theme of more than one interesting legend. On obtaining his discharge from military service, Martin became a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers. He returned to his native Pannonia, and converted his mother to Christianity, but he himself endured much persecution from the Arian party, who were at that time dominant; and in consequence of the firmness of his orthodoxy, he is the first confessor, rather than martyr, honoured in the Latin Church with an office and a feast. On his return to Gaul about 360 he founded a convent of monks near Poitiers, where he himself led a life of great austerity and seclusion; but in 371 he was drawn by force from his retreat, and made Bishop of Tours. The fame of his sanctity, and his repute as a worker of miracles, attracted crowds of visitors from all parts of Gaul; and in order to avoid the distraction of their importunity, he established the monastery of Marmoutier near Tours, in which he himself resided. He died between 397 and 401, and St Ninian, who had visited him at Tours and ever preserved the greatest veneration for him, dedicated to his memory the church he was then building at Whithorn in Galloway. His life by his contemporary, Sulpicius Severus, is a very curious specimen of the Christian literature of the age, and in the profusion of miraculous legends with which it abounds might take its place among the lives of the medieval or modern Roman Church. The only extant literary relic of Martin is a short Confession of Faith on the Holy Trinity, which is published by Galland, vol. vii. 559. In the Roman Catholic Church the festival of his birth is celebrated on the 11th November. In Scotland this day still marks the winter-term, which is called Martinmas. Formerly people used to begin St Martin's Day with feasting and drinking; hence the French expressions martiner and faire la St Martin, 'to feast,' and the fact that St Martin is the patron of drinking and of reformed drunkards.
See the books by Reinkens (Gera, 3d ed. 1876), Charnard (Poitiers, 1873), Cazenove's St Hilary and St Martin (1883), and Scullard's Martin of Tours (1891).