scholar_farmerToday (Nov 11) is the feast of St Martin of Tours; to celebrate, I talk a bit about Martinmas customs and about the celebration of the Feast at Thalbach in Bregenz in 1595 in today's blog post
TildalWave (~👋)Happy St. Martin's Day and the compulsory feast, young wine tasting, roasted chestnuts and generally kind spirits everyone!
#StMartin #Martinmas #Photography #Fungi #Mushrooms #Foraging #FungiFriday #Forest #APSC #Rangefinder #SamsungNX #NX300 #VintageLens #ManualFocus #50mm #Yashica
Spirituality & Religious StudiesSt. Martin’s Day
This is also called Martinmas or Martlemas. It’s historically called Old Halloween or All Hallows Eve.
This is the feast day of St. Martin of Tours. St. Martin of Tours was the 3rd Bishop of Tours. He’s the patron saint of many communities & organizations across Europe, including France’s Third Republic. It was celebrated in the liturgical year on November 11.
During the Middle Ages & early modern period, it was an important festival in many parts of Europe. Particularly in Germanic-speaking countries. In these areas, it started at the end of the harvest season, the beginning of the cold season, & the “winter revelling season.”
Traditions include feasting on goose or beef, drinking the first wine of the season, & mumming. Mumming is groups of men & women from the medieval to early modern era who are dressed in fantastical clothes, & costumes, & serenaded people outside their houses, or joined the party inside. Costumes varied including bears, deer, rams, or unicorns.
In some German & Dutch-speaking towns, there are processions of kids with lanterns (Laternelaufen), sometimes led by a horseman representing St. Martin. The saint was also said to bestow gifts to kids. In the Rhineland, it’s also marked by lighting bonfires.
Traditionally, in many parts of Europe, St. Martin’s Day marked the end of the harvest & the beginning of winter. The feast dovetails with the end of the Octave of Allhallowtide.
Martinmas was when livestock was slaughtered for winter supplies. Goose is eaten at Martinmas in most places. There’s a legend that St. Martin, when trying to avoid being ordained a bishop, hid in pin of geese whose noise gave him away.
In the wine growing regions of Europe, the first wine was ready around the time of Martinmas. St. Martin is widely credited in France with helping to spread winemaking throughout the region of Tours (Touraine) & facilitating vine-planting. He’s also credited with introducing the Chenin blanc grape. Most of the wine of western Touraine & Anjou is made from these grapes.
In the Rhineland region of Germany, bonfires are lit on St. Martin’s Eve. In the 15th century, the bonfires were so many that the festival got the nickname: Funkentag (Spark Day). In the 19th century, it was recorded that young people danced around the fire & leapt through the flames. The ashes were strewn on the fields to make them fertile.
In some German & Dutch-speaking towns, there are nighttime processions of kids carrying paper, or turnip, lanterns & singing songs of St. Martin.
In parts of Flanders & the Rhineland, processions are led by a man on horseback representing St. Martin. This man on horseback may give out apples, nuts, cakes, or other sweets to the kids.
In Ypres, kids hung up stockings filled with hay on Martinmas Eve. They woke up the next morning to find gifts in the stockings. The gifts were said to have been left by St. Martin was thanks for the fodder provided for his horse.
In the Swabia & Ansbach regions of Germany, a character called Pelzmarten (‘pelt Martin” or “skin Martin”) appeared at Martinmas until the 19th century. With a black face & wearing a cow bell, he ran about scaring the kids & he gave out “blows” as well as nuts & apples.
In the 6th century, church councils began requiring fasting on all days, except on Saturdays & Sundays, from St. Martin’s Day to the Epiphany on January 6 (That’s 56 days.). Elsewhere, the Feast of the Three Wise Men for the stopping of the star over Bethlehem.
An addition to & equal to the 40 days of Lent, given its weekend breaks, this was called Quadragesima Sancti Mantini (St. Martin’s Lent or literally “the 40th of”). This is rarely observed now.
This period was shortened to begin on the Sunday before December & became the current Advent within a few hundred years. In the Archdiocese of Milan according to Ancient Ambrosian Liturgical usage the feast of St. Martin is followed by the First Sunday in the Advent (the 6-week period) is still used in this large Diocese & the Churches outside it, such as in Ticino (Switzerland) that do still use the Ambrosian Liturgy.
In the United States, St. Martin’s Day celebrations are uncommon. But are usually held by German-American communities. Many German restaurants feature a traditional menu with goose & Gluhwein (a mulled red wine). St. Paul Minnesota celebrates with a traditional lantern procession around Rice Park. The evening includes German treats & traditions that highlight the season of giving. In Dayton, Ohio, the Dayton Liederkranz-Turner organization hosts a St. Martin’s Family Celebration on the weekend with an evening lantern parade to the singing of St. Martin’s carols, followed by a bonfire.
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Charles HarperSaint Martin's Day or Martinmas is the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours and is celebrated on 11 November. In the Middle Ages and early modern period, it was an important festival in many parts of Europe.
Martinmas in old Scots was often known as ‘Martinmas in winter’ to distinguish it from the feast of the translation of St Martin on the fourth of July. In Scotland it was one of the half yearly quarter days when landlords’ rents were paid, and new hands were hired.
HypnogoriaThere is also a famous spooky ballad set Martinmas - The Wife of Usher's Well https://www.contemplator.com/child/usher.html
RavenSome photos taken in the wood today, St Martins day.
Back when the village had a 3 field system, #Martinmas was when the pigs were let into the woods to forage, we know this because the wood was named after it. A quick trawl of the internet finds that in Europe Martinmas was the time to eat goose, and light candles and bonfires against the darkness. These are 'start of winter' things. Fatten the pigs ready to eat. Cull the geese so there are fewer to feed over the winter.
Pre christianity, the saxons had 2 seasons: gaer (year), and winter. (In the same way we have day and night, and day also means the whole cycle). Samhain, summer's end, marks the transition to winter. The Christian church turned samhain into prayers for the holy and the departed, a serious and sombre time, so I guess the feasting got pushed to St Martins day. A saint praised for generosity and charity, qualities important to remember during a feast to mark the start of the lean times of winter. #nature #autumn
Back when the village had a 3 field system, #Martinmas was when the pigs were let into the woods to forage, we know this because the wood was named after it. A quick trawl of the internet finds that in Europe Martinmas was the time to eat goose, and light candles and bonfires against the darkness. These are 'start of winter' things. Fatten the pigs ready to eat. Cull the geese so there are fewer to feed over the winter.
Pre christianity, the saxons had 2 seasons: gaer (year), and winter. (In the same way we have day and night, and day also means the whole cycle). Samhain, summer's end, marks the transition to winter. The Christian church turned samhain into prayers for the holy and the departed, a serious and sombre time, so I guess the feasting got pushed to St Martins day. A saint praised for generosity and charity, qualities important to remember during a feast to mark the start of the lean times of winter. #nature #autumn
jdmccafferty11 Nov 1534: Archbishop Cranmer tells the Convocation of #Canterbury #otd he is dropping the title ‘legate of the apostolic see’ & styling himself metropolitan as well as Primate of England And on #Martinmas too...
Stephen Hayes
Dry Joanuary 😷I never heard about this before:
Well into living memory in Ireland, ritual blood sacrifice was practiced on 11 November, or 'Martinmas,' largely in Connacht and the south-west.
#MastoDaoine #Martinmas #StMartinsDay #folklore #Ireland #ritual #pagan
Nov 1534: Archbishop Cranmer tells the Convocation of #Canterbury #otd he is dropping the title ‘legate of the apostolic see’ & styling himself metropolitan as well as Primate of England And on #Martinmas too...