Church of the Week Join us
TODAY IN CHURCH HISTORY

November 11 in Church History

Martin’s Cloak and the Mayflower Compact

November 11 in church history: Martin of Tours, the Fourth Lateran Council, the Mayflower Compact, the death of Kierkegaard and the Armistice of 1918.

Today marks the Armistice of 1918. While this marked the end of WWI, it didn’t mark the end of the war’s impact on Christianity and the Church.

Søren Kierkegaard died on this day in 1855 after attacking the comfortable Christianity of Denmark. Although he was ignored during his lifetime in Copenhagen, his impact on Western philosophy, theology, literature, and psychology has been profound. The father of existentialism left behind a tradition looking at faith as a personal crisis.

Today marks the burial of Martin of Tours, one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages. Son of a pagan Roman officer, he left the army as an early conscientious objector. He founded the first monastery in Gaul at Ligugé, became bishop of Tours in 372, and went on living as a monk. He took the faith out of the towns and into the countryside. When the heretic Priscillian was sentenced by the emperor in 385, Martin argued that such cases belonged to the church, not the sword. Priscillian’s execution was the first death penalty for heresy.

Twelve centuries later a small company of English Separatists went off course. The Mayflower had been blown far north of its Virginia grant, and so beyond their charter. Passengers talked of doing as they pleased. On November 11, 1620, forty-one men signed a brief agreement to form a “civil body politic” and obey laws made for the general good, for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.

On this day

  1. 397Martin is buried at Tours, three days after his death at Candes
  2. 1215Innocent III opens the Fourth Lateran Council
  3. 1417Martin V is elected at Constance, ending the Great Schism
  4. 1620Pilgrims sign the Mayflower Compact
  5. 1855Søren Kierkegaard dies in Copenhagen
  6. 1918Armistice ends fighting in World War I, shaking Europe’s faith in Christian civilization

Feast days

Martin of Tours

Also kept today: Theodore the Studite

A note on the date. The Mayflower Compact is dated by the Old Style calendar then used in England. By the modern calendar it fell on November 21, 1620.

November calendar

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30

Sources. David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints; Curtis, Lang and Petersen, The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History; standard reference works; Rusten and Rusten, The One Year Christian History; Curtis and Graves, This Day in Christian History.

Last updated November 2, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.