Saint Martin's Day. Saint Martin's Day, also called the Funeral of Saint Martin, Martinstag or Martinmas, as well as Old Halloween and Old Hallowmas Eve, is the Funeral day of Saint Martin of Tours and is celebrated on 11 November each year.
The feast was widely seen as the preferred time for the butchering of Martinmas beef from prime, fattened cattle, geese, other livestock and the ending of the toil of autumn wheat seeding. Hiring fairs were more abundant than usual, where farm laborers could choose, or others had, to seek new posts.
Saint Martin of Tours was a Roman soldier who was baptised as an adult and became a bishop in a French town. The most notable of his saintly acts was when he had cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm, to save him from the cold.
That same night he dreamed of Jesus wearing the half-cloak and saying to the angels, Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is now baptised; he has clothed me. Saint Martin died on 8 November 397, and was buried three days later. This holiday feast-day originated in France, then spread to the Low Countries, the British Isles, Galicia, Germany, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe.
Akin to Christmas, Martinmas is the day when Martin is honoured in the Mass. Its feast and meat-permitted day celebrates the end of the agrarian year, the main annual harvest. Saint Martin was known as friend of the children and patron of the po
The feast was widely seen as the preferred time for the butchering of Martinmas beef from prime, fattened cattle, geese, other livestock and the ending of the toil of autumn wheat seeding. Hiring fairs were more abundant than usual, where farm laborers could choose, or others had, to seek new posts.
Saint Martin of Tours was a Roman soldier who was baptised as an adult and became a bishop in a French town. The most notable of his saintly acts was when he had cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm, to save him from the cold.
That same night he dreamed of Jesus wearing the half-cloak and saying to the angels, Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is now baptised; he has clothed me. Saint Martin died on 8 November 397, and was buried three days later. This holiday feast-day originated in France, then spread to the Low Countries, the British Isles, Galicia, Germany, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe.
Akin to Christmas, Martinmas is the day when Martin is honoured in the Mass. Its feast and meat-permitted day celebrates the end of the agrarian year, the main annual harvest. Saint Martin was known as friend of the children and patron of the po
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