The connexion of St. Martin with Tours came about in this way. He was born about 316, a native of Lower Hungary; had a taste for the monastic life; was compelled by edict to become a soldier; served for three years up to the age of eighteen; went to visit Hilary at Poitiers; after some years came again to Hilary, and founded the monastery of Lugugé, near Poitiers, said to have been the first monastic institution in Gaul. His reputation stood so high that in 371 he was elected by the populace to the bishopric of Tours, much against his will. He built the monastery of Marmoutier, _Maius Monasterium_, about two miles to the north-east of the walls of Tours, where a large number of students received an education in such learning as then was known. His time was mostly spent in conversion of the pagans in his diocese. At the age of eighty, in 396, he was called to Condate to settle an ecclesiastical dispute, was seized with fever, and died. It was just at that time that his great admirer, Ninian, was finishing his stone church at Whithern, in Galloway, and to Martin he dedicated it. From that time, and owing to the connexion between Britain and Gaul, dedications to St. Martin were frequent, as is instanced by the old British church of St. Martin at Canterbury. [Illustration: PLATE III St. Martin’s, Tours; the Tour Charlemagne, with the dome of the new St. Martin’s on the left. _To face p. 212._] [Illustration: PLATE IV The modern reproduction of the Tomb of St. Martin. _To face p. 213._]