Do you follow the saints' days? I don't normally, but one appeared recently in a story from Germany which happened to catch my eye. The story was about a crime committed several centuries ago, allegedly by three Swedish soldiers who had decamped from their army and wanted to get back home across the Baltic to Sweden. They were said to have gained entry to a local manor house dressed as “Martinsbettler” where they proceeded to murder the occupants, rifle through the contents and escape in a yacht stolen from the estate.
Just what was a “Martinsbettler” I wondered. The word means “St Martin's beggars”, and it turns out that it was the local custom to give alms to beggars on St Martin's day in commemoration of St Martin. St Martin was reputedly a soldier in the Roman army who was riding his horse one day in a snowstorm when he saw a poor beggar with no coat. He promptly cut his own cloak in two with his sword and gave half of it to the beggar. That night he had a dream that Jesus came to him wearing the half of his cloak he had given to the beggar. He was so moved that he left the army, got baptised, went into the church and eventually became bishop of Tours. He died in 397 AD and his funeral was on November 11th, a date which is celebrated as St Martin's Day or Martinmas, the occasion in the church calendar when the giving of alms to the poor is specially fostered.
It became a significant occasion in the secular calendar too, marking the end of the agricultural year with the harvest all gathered in, it was when labourers came to the end of their contracts and farmers would be hiring again for the forthcoming year. It became a celebration of the bounty of the earth, a sort of mini-carnival with lantern-lit processions, bonfires, geese for supper (if you could afford them), all washed down by the first new wines of the season.
Those customs have completely died out here although not so much abroad. In Britain November 11th has been taken over as Remembrance Day and the former St Martin's Day merrymaking has been eclipsed by other events such as Harvest festival, Hallowe'en or Bonfire Night By contrast some old St Martin's Day traditions live on in parts of Germany, uninfluenced by Bonfire Night which is peculiarly British or Hallowe'en which is a relatively recent import and not necessarily popular with all Germans. Furthermore the German Volkstrauertag, the People's Day of Mourning, commemorating those from every country who have died in armed conflict or from violent oppression, falls not on St Martins Day as in Britain but on the second Sunday before Advent.
Have we lost something in Britain? Maybe at this time year there is a case for reviving the celebration of the good St Martin as a benefactor of those in need, if not with all the merrymaking that once went with it.
David Tidy