Martin may not be the most well known saint here in the states, he is quite popular in Europe. In fact his popularity during the medieval period was off the charts, and many fine arts were created based on his life. One medium that enjoyed impressive interest was embroidering; basically using stitch and textiles to create intricate (and long lasting) images.
One of the finest examples of medieval embroideries is a series from the 14th century that depicted scenes from The Life of St Martin, a biography by Sulpitious Severus. The best English language book on this series is by Margaret B. Freeman, “The St. Martin Embroideries,” published in 1968 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Although the book is now out of print, the publisher has made it available for free as a digital e-book in PDF format.
Click HERE to begin a download of the file (about 4.5MB). Most of the images in the book are black and white, so some of the magic is lost transmission, but a few from the Met’s own collections are viewable in color HERE, and they’ve been reproduced below too.
