About
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Saint Martin of Tours
Martin was born to pagan parents in Savaria, Pannonia (modern day Hungary) in either the year 316 or 336 AD. During his youth, his family moved to Italy. At the age of fifteen, Martin joined the Roman army, and tradition has it that, while serving near Amiens, he shared his military cloak with a destitute beggar (see painting above by Louis Galloche, c. 1737) . Martin was later granted a vision of Christ who, clothed in the cloak he had given the beggar, encouraged him to be baptized.After his discharge from military service (356), he became a disciple of St. Hilary of Poitiers, and he later founded (360–61) a monastery at Ligugé (the first established in Gaul). Martin was made Bishop of Tours in 372 and died on a pastoral visit to Candes on November 8, 397. He was buried in Tours on November 11 and his tomb became a major place of pilgrimage. Martin was the first non-martyr to be venerated as a saint.
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