He served in the Roman cavalry in Gaul, but left military service prior to 361, when he became a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers, establishing the monastery at Ligugé.

It had many more adherents in the Eastern Empire, whence it had sprung, and was concentrated in cities, brought along the trade routes by converted Jews and Greeks (the term "pagan" literally means "country-dweller").

As the son of a veteran officer, Martin at 15 was required to join a cavalry ala. At the age of 18 (around 334 or 354), he was stationed at Ambianensium civitas or Samarobriva in Gaul (now Amiens, France).

As the unit was stationed at Milan and is also recorded at Trier, it is likely to have been part of the elite cavalry bodyguard of the Emperor, which accompanied him on his travels around the Empire.

[6] Regardless of the difficulties in chronology, Sulpicius reports that just before a battle in the Gallic provinces at Borbetomagus (now Worms, Germany), Martin determined that his switch of allegiance to a new commanding officer (away from antichristian Julian and to Christ), along with reluctance to receive Julian's pay just as Martin was retiring, prohibited his taking the money and continuing to submit to the authority of the former now, telling him, "I am the soldier of Christ: it is not lawful for me to fight.

According to the early sources, Martin decided to seek shelter on the island then called Gallinaria, now Isola d'Albenga, in the Ligurian Sea, where he lived the solitary life of a hermit.

Not entirely alone, since the chronicles indicate that he would have been in the company of a priest, a man of great virtues, and for a period with Hilary of Poitiers, on this island, where the wild hens lived.

[10] With the return of Hilary to his see in 361, Martin joined him and established a hermitage at what is now the town of Ligugé south of Poitiers, and soon attracted converts and followers.

The crypt under the parish church (not the current Abbey Chapel) reveals traces of a Roman villa, probably part of the bath complex, which had been abandoned before Martin established himself there.

He was enticed to Tours from Ligugé by a ruse — he was urged to come to minister to someone sick — and was brought to the church, where he reluctantly allowed himself to be consecrated bishop.

[3] According to one version, he was so unwilling to be made bishop that he hid in a barn full of geese, but their cackling at his intrusion gave him away to the crowd; that may account for complaints by a few that his appearance was too disheveled to be commensurate with a bishopric, but the critics were hugely outnumbered.

He continued to set up monastic communities, and extended the influence of his episcopate from Touraine to such distant points as Chartres, Paris, Autun, and Vienne.

After failing to obtain the support of Ambrose of Milan and Pope Damasus I, Priscillian appealed to Magnus Maximus, who had usurped the throne from Gratian.

One chronicle states that "2,000 monks, and nearly as many white-robed virgins, walked in the procession" accompanying the body from the river to a small grove just west of the city, where Martin was buried and where his shrine was established.

While Martin was a soldier in the Roman army and stationed in Gaul (modern-day France), he experienced a vision, which became the most-repeated story about his life.

[25] A large block of marble above the tomb, the gift of bishop Euphronius of Autun (472–475), rendered it visible to the faithful gathered behind the high altar.

Clovis, King of the Salian Franks, one of many warring tribes in sixth-century France, promised his Christian wife Clotilda that he would be baptised if he was victorious over the Alemanni.

The popular devotion to St Martin continued to be closely identified with the Merovingian monarchy: in the early seventh century Dagobert I commissioned the goldsmith Saint Eligius to make a work in gold and gems for the tomb-shrine.

After the surrender of Napoleon to the Prussians after the Battle of Sedan in September 1870, a provisional government of national defense was established, and France's Third Republic was proclaimed.

The flag of Sacre-Coeur, borne by Ultramontane Catholic Pontifical Zouaves who fought at Patay, had been placed overnight in St. Martin's tomb before being taken into battle on 9 October 1870.

He was a brave fighter, knew his obligation to the poor, shared his goods, performed his required military service, followed legitimate orders, and respected secular authority.

Pie's ultimate hope was that St Martin would stop the "chariot" of modern society, and lead to the creation of a France where the religious and secular sectors merged.

Anticlerical legislators wanted commanders, not chaplains, to provide troops with moral support and to supervise their formation in the established faith of "patriotic Republicanism".

Beyond his patronage of the French Third Republic, Saint Martin more recently has also been described in terms of "a spiritual bridge across Europe" due to his "international" background, being a native of Pannonia who spent his adult life in Gaul.

On St. Martin's Day, children in Flanders, the southern and northern parts of the Netherlands, and the Catholic areas of Germany and Austria participate in paper lantern processions.

As he faced a long ride in a freezing weather, the dark clouds cleared away and the sun shone so intensely that the frost melted away.

His day is celebrated with a procession and festivities in the city of Poznań, where the main street (Święty Marcin) is named for him, after a 13th-century church in his honor.

It was the home church for many years of President and Mrs. George H. W. Bush and still is for former Secretary of State and Treasury James Baker and his wife Susan.

Though no mention of St. Martin's connection with viticulture is made by Gregory of Tours or other early hagiographers, he is now credited with a prominent role in spreading wine-making throughout the Touraine region and the planting of many vines.

The Greek myth that Aristaeus first discovered the concept of pruning the vines, after watching a goat eat some of the foliage, has been adopted for Martin.