Pseudo-Sulpicius Severus: Carmina

These verses in honour of Saint Martin of Tours were added by Migne as a supplement, with an editorial note explaining that the scholars Miller and Aubenas had found them in a manuscript of the library of Saint-Victor after the life, letters and dialogues on Martin by Sulpicius Severus, and had suggested they might be his. The poems are inscriptions for particular places: the doors and inner rooms of Martin’s cell, the place of his bed, and the basilica, with tituli for its towers, doorways facing east, west and the Loire, and its apse. Prose captions describe pictures, such as Christ walking on the sea and the church of Jerusalem.

Verse and prose inscriptions for walls and paintings were common in late antique churches, and those connected with Martin’s sanctuary at Tours show how his cult was presented to pilgrims. The ascription of this set to Sulpicius Severus rests only on its position in the manuscript and is not established. The texts are a useful witness to the decoration and use of Martin’s shrine, though their exact date and author remain uncertain.