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The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity


from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world


Gregory of Tours, in his Miracles of Martin (2.51), recounts how people afflicted by an epidemic of dysentery in Tours were cured after they drank dust from the tomb of *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050), or were smeared with oil from the shrine, or used the water with which Martin's tomb was washed at Easter; AD 579/580. Written in Latin in Tours (north-west Gaul), 579/581.

Evidence ID

E03306

Type of Evidence

Literary - Hagiographical - Collections of miracles

Major author/Major anonymous work

Gregory of Tours

Gregory of Tours, Miracles of Martin (Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini episcopi) 2.51

Cum autem morbus ille dissentericus cum occultis pusulis multas attereret civitates, et inter reliqua loca urbs Turonica gravius laboraret, multi, abrasum a beato tumulo pulverem haustum, sanabantur. Plerique de oleo, qui inibi habetur, delibuti liberabantur; fuitque nonnullis remedium aqua illa, unde sepulchrum ablutum est ante pascha. Igitur, cum multis multa tribuerentur beneficia, vidi unum in desperatione a disenteria iacentem, quem ad basilicam ductum, aliis vigilias celebrantibus, noctem inquietam duxisse; diluculo vero accedens ad tumulum, potato cum vino pulverem, sanus rediit e sepulchro.

'The illness of dysentery was afflicting many cities with its hidden sores. When in addition to other places the city of Tours was suffering badly, many people were cured after scratching dust from the blessed tomb and drinking it. Many other people were freed after being smeared with the oil that was there; and the water with which the tomb was washed before Easter was also a remedy for some. Then, although many blessings were being distributed to many people, I saw one man with dysentery lying in despair. He had been brought to the church and passed a difficult night while others were celebrating vigils. At dawn he went to the tomb, drank some dust [mixed] with wine, and returned from the tomb with his health.'


Text: Krusch 1969, 176.
Translation: Van Dam 1993, 253-254, lightly modified (= de Nie 2015, 639).

Cult Places

Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Cult building - independent (church)

Non Liturgical Activity

Visiting/veneration of living saint
Vigils

Miracles

Miracle after death
Healing diseases and disabilities

Relics

Contact relic - dust/sand/earth
Eating/drinking/inhaling relics
Contact relic - oil
Contact relic - water and other liquids
Making contact relics

Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Other lay individuals/ people

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

This plague of dysentery is also mentioned in Gregory's Histories 5.34.


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.


Record Created By

Katarzyna Wojtalik

Date of Entry

18/07/2017

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S00050Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397Certain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
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