The storiesIX / IX
The death of Saint Martin at Candes
Old and ill, Martin went to settle a quarrel among priests, died on 8 November 397, and was carried up the Loire to Tours.
Candes → Tours, November 397
Old and worn out, he went to Candes because the priests there were quarrelling.
He made peace between them. Then the fever came.
He would not have a mattress. He lay on ashes.
He died on 8 November. They took him up the Loire by boat, and the banks were full of people singing.
He was buried in Tours on 11 November. That is still his day.
“Lord, if your people still need me, I do not refuse the work.”
Margin noteMy book ends before this. He was alive when I finished it. I told the rest in letters.
From the book
Narrator’s Epilogue · What happened next: The death of Saint Martin and the origin of the 11th of November
Why does Sulpicius Severus’s book end without telling of the death of Saint Martin? For the simplest reason of all: when the manuscript was finished and went off to…
What Sulpicius wrote and what was added later are kept apart on this site. About this edition