St. Martin's Day

What the day is

St Martin's Day is a church feast held every 11 November for Martin of Tours, the bishop who died in 397. It falls at the end of the Octave of Allhallowtide. In farming country the date once stood for the moment when the harvest was in and winter had arrived, and it opened what writers call the winter revelling season. It grew into a fixture of the European year, above all where Germanic languages were spoken. Parishes, schools and families keep it with lantern walks, bonfires, a roast bird and the season's first wine.

Origins and history

Martin of Tours was a Roman soldier who was baptised as an adult and later became a bishop in Gaul. The story told about him is that he split his cloak with his sword so that a beggar in rags could have half of it, and that Christ came to him that night wearing the half he had given away. Martin Walsh, studying a forgotten English Martinmesse, argues that the date carried an older, non-Christian meaning before the feast was fixed to it. He points to 10 November, which the Roman world counted as winter's start, and to 1 November, when Celtic peoples kept Samhain or Calan Gaeaf. In England the feast faded after the Reformation, as Guy Fawkes Night, new farming methods and industrial change pushed it aside.

Lanterns and bonfires

On the eve of the feast, children in German and Dutch speaking towns walk in procession with lanterns they have made at school, often of paper, sometimes hollowed from a turnip. These walks are called Laternelaufen. Many begin at a church and finish in a public square, where a rider dressed as Martin leads the group and a bonfire is lit. In the Rhineland the fires once burned so thickly that people nicknamed the day Funkentag, spark day. Nineteenth century accounts describe young people dancing round the flames and leaping through them, then scattering the ashes on the fields to make them fertile. Children who knock at doors may be given sweets, apples, nuts or cakes.

Food and drink

Goose is the dish most closely tied to the day, and a legend explains why: Martin, hiding in a pen of geese to escape being made a bishop, was betrayed by their cackling. Goose eating was once a set piece of the autumn calendar, and the custom travelled from France to Sweden, where townspeople, craftsmen and nobles were the first to take it up. Poorer households often had duck or hen, since a goose was beyond many budgets. In winegrowing regions the new wine was ready around this date, and in France Martin is credited with helping vines spread through Touraine. Rhineland bakers shape sweet pastries like a croissant, a reminder of the horse's hooves and of the cloak torn in two.

Fasting and Advent

From the sixth century, church councils asked people to fast on every day except Saturday and Sunday between the day after the feast and Epiphany on 6 January, a run of fifty six days. Longer than a single Lent when its weekend breaks are counted, it was named Quadragesima Sancti Martini, or Saint Martin's Lent. Few keep it today. Over the following centuries the period was cut back until it opened on the Sunday before December, becoming the Advent season that churches now observe. In the Archdiocese of Milan the feast is followed at once by the first Sunday of Advent, under the Ambrosian Rite still used there and in Ticino in Switzerland.

How St. Martin's Day is kept

On the evening before 11 November, families in German and Dutch speaking areas take their lanterns into the street and walk together, usually from a church to a market square. A person on horseback dressed as Martin often rides at the front, and the bonfire is lit once the group arrives. Children sing Martin songs, and may collect sweets, fruit, nuts or pastries from door to door. A roast goose follows, at home or in a restaurant. In Flanders the walk belongs to 10 November; in the Rhineland lanterns also go from house to house.

When and where

The feast is fixed on 11 November in the church calendar, and much of the celebrating happens on St Martin's Eve, the evening before. Some German processions now run across the fortnight leading up to the day, and in Flanders the main evening is 10 November. The old fast that followed began the next day and ran to Epiphany.

It is kept most strongly in German speaking Europe, above all in the Rhineland, and in Austria, the Netherlands and Dutch speaking Belgium. Alsace and Lorraine, on the French side of the Rhine, hold processions too, and Danish and Swedish households traditionally eat goose. German American communities in the United States mark the day in places such as Saint Paul, Minnesota and Dayton, Ohio. In England it has largely faded.

What St. Martin's Day means

The lantern carries the heart of the picture: light held up in the dark half of the year. In one telling, the fires were read as a sign of the light that holiness carries into the dark, the same hope Martin brought to people in need through his good deeds. The day also means something plainer, the turn of the farming year, when animals were slaughtered and stores laid in for winter. For children the saint is a giver, thanked for the hay left out for his horse.

Days St. Martin's Day is marked

St. Martin's Day dates: 2026, 2027, 2028

Questions people ask about St. Martin's Day

See also

Good FridayA solemn Christian holy day commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.Kol NidreAn Aramaic declaration of vow annulment that opens the Yom Kippur evening service in Jewish synagogues.Tisha B'AvA solemn fast day in July or August to mourn the destruction of the Jerusalem Temples and other Jewish tragedies.Nativity of MaryA Christian feast day honouring the birth of Mary, the mother of Jesus

Good reading and sources

• Why November 11th was a day for blood sacrifice rites in IrelandRTE, Article
• Why November 11th was a day for blood sacrifice rites in IrelandRTE, Article

• St. Martin's Day on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-09.