Saint Hilaire, who died in 368 AD, and Saint Martin, who died in 397, propelled Poitiers to the big leagues of early Christianity in Gaul. The Wisigothic and subsequent early Merovingian Frank periods saw many holy figures attracted to Poitiers. An interesting case was one Thaumastus, Bishop of Mainz in the early 5th century. Not much is known about his life, save that he had to leave the Rhineland for some reason. The early 5th century saw the main wave of invasions by Germanic tribes coming over the Rhine, and the end of the Roman Empire in the West, so one can imagine many reasons that one might have left Mainz in this period. This Bishop Thaumastus chose to take refuge here in Poitiers. He died here, and was buried close to the venerated Hilaire, on the grounds of the old Roman necropole just south of the main city center, besides the road to Bordeaux. His tomb became a destination for pilgrims, and for a time was an extremely popular and crowded destination, drawing many to his adopted city. The attraction was that it seemed that his ashes, when scraped, mixed with water and imbibed, could cure toothaches. As toothpaste, dentists, and novocaine were still centuries in the future, the power to cure toothaches was indeed a miraculous thing. The reported cures eventually led to Thaumastus’ canonization, with a feast day on the Catholic Calendar of Saints fixed on January 1. His miraculous tomb, and the little crypt where he was buried, named for St Bartholomew, gradually faded into oblivion. Reportedly it was located on the corner where Rue St Hilaire and Rue Renaudot come together. If your teeth regret a recent patisserie, and your dentist in inaccessible, you can always go to the street corner, scrape up some dust to drink, and pray for help.
