ON ST. MARTIN OF BRIVE, MARTYR,
AT LIMOGES IN GAUL.
SYNOPSIS
Concerning his cult, the place, and its traditions
Martin of Brive, at Limoges in Gaul (S.)
By the author J. B. S.
[1] Among the several Martins who are Saints, this one is the first, if I am not mistaken, in age, He is noted in the Hieronymian Martyrologies. but known by his name alone, and is distinguished from the rest by the added epithet "of Brive." That he was a Martyr, and that his cult is most ancient, the Hieronymian codices abundantly prove, inasmuch as in the very text of Florentinius he is expressly, though corruptly, announced in the last place: In the city of Limoges, of St. Martin of Priva. A little more distinctly in the Corbie codex: In the city of Limoges, of St. Martin of Brivatum. Add the Hagiology of Franco-Gaul of Labbe, bearing also an ancient testimony for the cult: In the city of Limoges, of St. Martin of Brive. The announcement is correct in the Bordeaux Usuard: At Briva, of holy Martin the martyr. Him also, although passed over by Saussay, Ferrari inserted into his general Catalogue. Clearer than the rest, Castellanus, determining the place a little more distinctly, assigns him to Briva Curretiæ (in French Brive la Gaillarde), which is described somewhat more fully by Baudrand, more neatly by Valois in the Notitia Galliarum. And these things establish the cult, to which may be added a very brief eulogy in Bernard Gui, from volume 1 of the Bibliotheca of Labbe, page 632: St. Martin the martyr adorns the village of Brive, whose fame of miracles reached even to the ears of the emperor Valerian *. Whose deeds are extant. Thus he, likely indeed to have deserved excellently of the Saint, had he added those very deeds. What follows is true: that his feast is kept on the V of the Ides of August.
[2] It will be worth while for a while to hear Valois himself, accurately explaining the place under the title of Briva Curretiæ: Valois describes the place. It was a village in the territory of the Limousins, when the grandsons and great-grandsons of Clovis the Great were reigning, now bearing itself after the manner of a town, surnamed from the bridge set over the river Corrèze, in French Briva Curretia, that is, the bridge at the Corrèze: in whose basilica the inhabitants affirm that B. Martin, the disciple of Martin bishop of Tours, is buried, and they venerate him exceedingly on account of present help often experienced. It is commonly called Brive la Gaillarde, that is, cheerful Briva. That this Martin of today should be said, perhaps on account of the sameness of name, to have been a disciple of Martin of Tours, no one will easily reconcile with the age of Valerian already asserted, where probably Valentinian is indicated, as one who is reported to have commended himself to the Saint. Nor indeed did the tradition of the place suggest that discipleship, which the illustrious Lord le Beuf, canon and succentor of the church of Auxerre, our often-praised helper in this Work, deigned to communicate with us, from whom we have received the following in summary.
[3] What the men of Brive think of the Saint's origin, The men of Brive relate, he says—understand it from the traditions received there—that their St. Martin is said to have been a Spaniard by origin, sprung of an illustrious, indeed a princely family; that amid the corruptions of a heathen court he held the Christian faith most steadfastly, but afterwards, fearing dangerous temptations, secretly left his country and undertook various pilgrimages, which they extend even into Italy: that he came at length into the district of Périgord, where he betook himself to the place called Savignac, and there, having contracted a singular friendship with a certain holy priest named Laurence, he went forward with him to Brive for the sake of propagating the faith, which while he announces with great zeal, rising up sharply against the idolaters, he was overwhelmed with stones by the enraged heathen people, and beheaded by one of them, and at last given a decent burial by his companion Laurence. By what reasoning at last these things can be reconciled with the times or the deeds of St. Martin of Tours, of which above, I do not at all understand.
[4] What besides pertains to the cult he thus enumerates: and with how great veneration they attend him. The men of Brive proclaim that the sacred body of their holy Patron is preserved even today in the collegiate church of his name; and that his skull and part of his jaw have been placed in a magnificent bust, which persistent report records to have been made by St. Eligius. There survives also another notable monument of the Saint; namely a pallium or garment, which through so many centuries persists uncorrupted, although the cloths or linens in which it is wrapped are successively corrupted. There is also at Brive a constant memory that the emperor Valentinian, about to engage with the enemy, being anxious about the hazard of the battle, devoted himself to St. Martin of Brive with the highest confidence, and that, the victory being happily won, he sent a silver chalice to the Saint's church, which they will have to be still exhibited surviving today. What at last le Beuf says finally, that St. Ruricius bishop of Limoges made excellent mention of St. Martin in his letters, that I confess I have not yet found; nor does anything else remain which could here be added.
Annotata* perhaps of Valentinian