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E02861: Gregory of Tours, in his Miracles of Martin (1.13), recounts a story told him by Venantius Fortunatus of how an unnamed man in Italy was cured from a deadly pustule by placing on it a piece of clothing worn by a man when visiting the church in Tours of *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050). Fortunatus also told Gregory about his father, cured by applying a piece of cloth from an oratory of Martin in the north Italy. Written in Latin in Tours (north-west Gaul), 573/576.

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posted on 2017-05-29, 00:00 authored by kwojtalik
Gregory of Tours, Miracles of Martin (Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi) 1.13

Gregory was told by Fortunatus about a miracle that happened in Italy to a man suffering from a deadly pustule.

Quidam aliquibus interrogat, ad templum beati Martini quis fuerit. Tunc quidam ex adstantibus adserit, se fuisse. Requiret aegrotus, quid inde pro benedictione detulerit. Qui negat, se aliquid praesumpsisse. Cui iterum interrogat, qua tunc veste indutus sit, cum ad templum sanctum occurrerit. Respondit: ea quae super se ipso tempore utebatur. Tunc abscisam fideliter indumenti particulam inposuit super pusulam. Mox ut aegri membra tetigit, vulnus pusulae veneni vim perdidit; quae tali medicamine et virtute sancti protulit et infirmum refert incolomem.

'He (the infected man) asked some men whether any of them had been to the church of the blessed Martin. One of the bystanders said that he had been. The ill man asked what he had taken away from the church as a blessing. The other man replied that he had not presumed to take anything. The ill man asked him again which clothes he had been wearing then when he visited the holy church. The man replied (that he had then been wearing) the clothes that he was wearing now. The ill man confidently cut off a small fragment of the other man’s clothes and placed it on his pustule. As soon as the fragment touched the limbs of the ill man, the wound of the pustule lost its poisonous effect; and through its medicine the fragment offered the saint’s power and restored the ill man to his health.'

Fortunatus also recounted that whenever someone suffered from a pustule in Italy, they went to the nearest oratory of Martin (ad propinquum quod fuerit beati Martini oratorium) and would be healed by placing on the wound a piece of cloth taken from the curtain over the door, or of the draperies that hung on the walls. Fortunatus' father was cured by such a remedy.

Text: Krusch 1969, 147. Translation: Van Dam 1993, 214, lightly modified.

History

Evidence ID

E02861

Saint Name

Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours (Gaul), ob. 397 : S00050

Saint Name in Source

Martinus

Type of Evidence

Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles

Language

  • Latin

Evidence not before

573

Evidence not after

576

Activity not before

530

Activity not after

576

Place of Evidence - Region

Gaul and Frankish kingdoms

Place of Evidence - City, village, etc

Tours

Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)

Tours Tours Tours Toronica urbs Prisciniacensim vicus Pressigny Turonorum civitas Ceratensis vicus Céré

Major author/Major anonymous work

Gregory of Tours

Cult activities - Places

Cult building - independent (church)

Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs

Visiting graves and shrines

Cult Activities - Miracles

Miracle after death Healing diseases and disabilities

Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy Other lay individuals/ people

Cult Activities - Relics

Contact relic - cloth Making contact relics Touching and kissing relics

Source

Gregory, of a prominent Clermont family with extensive ecclesiastical connections, was bishop of Tours from 573 until his death (probably in 594). He was the most prolific hagiographer of all Late Antiquity. He wrote four books on the miracles of Martin of Tours, one on those of Julian of Brioude, and two on the miracles of other saints (the Glory of the Martyrs and Glory of the Confessors), as well as a collection of twenty short Lives of sixth-century Gallic saints (the Life of the Fathers). He also included a mass of material on saints in his long and detailed Histories, and produced two independent short works: a Latin version of the Acts of Andrew and a Latin translation of the story of The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. Gregory's Miracles of Martin (full title Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi, 'Books of the Miracles of Saint Martin the Bishop'), consists of four books of miracles, 207 chapters in all, effected by Martin, primarily at his grave and shrine in Tours. Most of them occurred at the time of the saint's festivals, on 4 July and 11 November. Gregory tried to record the miracles in chronological order, so historians have been able to calculate quite precisely the dates of the events and miracles mentioned in the work. This fairly precise chronology has enabled scholars to determine the dates of completion of each book. There have been three main dating schemes proposed for the composition of the four books. The oldest was suggested by Monod in 1872, another by Krusch in 1885, and then one by Van Dam in 1993 (for fuller discussion, see Shaw 2015, 103-105). Their datings of the individual books do not vary substantially, and in our entries we have given only those of Van Dam. Shaw 2015 convincingly demolishes an earlier theory, that Gregory wrote the Miracles in two distinct stages: a first stage that was written during a particular period, and a second stage in the early 590s, in which Gregory revised the whole work. Book 1, with 40 chapters, was written between 573 and 576. In the prologue, Gregory mentions that he started writing after he became bishop of Tours in August 573. Book 1 must have been completed by 576, since Venantius Fortunatus in a letter to Gregory of that year referred to it (Epistula ad Gregorium 2, prefatory letter to Fortunatus' Life of Martin, MGH Auct. ant. 4.1, p. 293). Book 2 consists of 60 chapters. It must have been finished before November 581, because the last miracles it mentions occurred in November 580, while the first ones recorded in Book 3 happened in November 581. Using the same methodology, the completion of Book 3, which also covers 60 chapters, can be dated between 587 and July 588. Book 4, which consists of 47 chapters, seems never to have been completed, presumably because of Gregory’s death. There are two main arguments in support of the idea that it is unfinished. Firstly, Book 4 has no conclusion and no tidy number of chapters, while each of Books 1 to 3 has these elements. Secondly, the last story recorded in Book 4 is not about Gregory himself, unlike the final stories of Books 2 and 3. Book 1 covers miracles that occurred before Gregory’s episcopate in Tours. The next three books are a running chronicle of Martin’s miracles under Gregory’s episcopate. Some of the miracles are recorded in very summary form, while others are much more elaborately presented: because of this, it has been argued that Gregory first jotted down notes, and only subsequently gave the stories full literary treatment (which in some cases, he was never able to do). The three completed books of the Miracles of Martin were probably released as they were completed, rather that published together. In this sense they are the exception amongst Gregory's writings, since the rest of his work was not finally completed and seems to have been unpublished at the time of his death. For discussion of the work, see: Krusch, B. (ed.), Gregorii episcopi Turonensis miracula et opera minora (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1,2; 2nd ed.; Hannover, 1969), 2–4. Monod, G., Études critiques sur les sources de l’histoire mérovingienne, 1e partie (Paris, 1872), 42–45. Shaw, R., "Chronology, Composition and Authorial Conception in the Miracula," in: A.C. Murray (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden-Boston, 2015), 102–140. Van Dam, R., Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993), 142–146, 199.

Discussion

Venantius Fortunatus, who came to Gaul from Ravenna in the 560s, was Gregory's source for four accounts of miracles of Martin set in northern Italy: Miracles of Martin I.13-16 (E02861, E02862, E02863 and E02869).

Bibliography

Editions and translations: Krusch, B. (ed.), Gregorii episcopi Turonensis miracula et opera minora (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1,2; 2nd ed.; Hannover, 1969), 134–211. Van Dam, R. (trans.), Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, 1993), 200–303. de Nie, G. (ed. and trans.), Lives and Miracles: Gregory of Tours (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 39; Cambridge MA, 2015), 421–855. Further reading: Murray, A.C. (ed.), A Companion to Gregory of Tours (Leiden-Boston, 2015). Shanzer, D., "So Many Saints – So Little Time ... the Libri Miraculorum of Gregory of Tours," Journal of Medieval Latin 13 (2003), 19–63.

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