FROM ALL SAINTS TO ST ANDREW:
SAINTS COMMEMORATED IN NOVEMBER
1 November – Solemnity of All Saints
On this day the Church venerates all those, known and unknown, whose
virtues and efforts in this life are considered to be an example to us all. The
Church gives thanks for their lives and glorifies God through those who have
gone before us. The feast includes great saints and lesser ones who have
no days to remember them. In the early church martyrs only were venerated
as saints; a feast of ‘Martyrs of all the Earth’ was celebrated in Syria by the
4 th century, usually on our Trinity Sunday. The first mention of 1 November
comes from England, and by the 8 th century Alcuin of York, then abbot of
Tours, wrote of the feast which was preceded by three days of fasting. The
date was formally fixed by Pope Gregor IV (827-44) because the summer
months were difficult for the many pilgrims attending in Rome, since the
‘Roman fever’ was a great killer in the hot months. The traditional English
name is ‘All Hallows’ which produced the feast of Halloween, more
appropriate to the commemoration of the dead at ‘All Souls’.
6 November St Illtyd (6 th century)
The name derives from the Latin ‘ille tutus’, =the safe one. Illtyd is one of the
great founding fathers of Welsh Christianity. According to a later life story,
he came from a princely family in Brittany, his father was a warrior and he
became a knight and is said to have visited his cousin Arthur, when he was
one of the knight to be in charge of the Holy Grail. He married a woman
called Trynihid, but after a hunting accident and meeting a holy man, he left
his wife and family and became a hermit in the Wye Valley. Together with
some companions he moved to South Glamorgan and founded a community
at Llantwit Major, which became a great Monastery. Illtyd became ’the most
learned of all the Britons’ in all kinds of philosophy. He is said to have also
founded the monastery on Caldey Island. Much of his life was devoted to
wonder working, one seems to have been true, that he organised grain ships
for Brittany at a time of famine. His shrine was later moved to Glastonbury,
where he became one of the figures to promote pilgrimage there.
11 November St Martin of Tours (336-397)
One of the most popular medieval Saints, he was born of pagan parents in
Hungary and became a soldier like his father. When he was posted to
Amiens, France one of the most famous episodes in Christian history
occurred: Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar, who later appeared to him
as Christ. After that he wanted to be a ‘soldier of Christ’ and refused to fight,
which led to imprisonment. He founded the first monastic community in Gaul
at Marmoutier, a centre for mission. He became bishop of Tours and
travelled all over his diocese on foot, was involved in theological disputes
10