page_title: Ivo of Kermartin
section_title: The Widow of Tours
hierarchical_section_title: Ivo of Kermartin / The Widow of Tours
context_page_description: Ivo of Kermartin, T.O.S.F., also known Yvo, Yves, or Ives, was a parish priest among the poor of Louannec, the only one of his station to be canonized in the Middle Ages. He is the patron of Brittany, lawyers and abandoned children. His feast day is 19 May. Poetically, he is referred to as "Advocate of the Poor".
context_section_description: John Wigmore retells the famous story of St. Ives and the Widow of Tours, writing in the Fordham Law Review in 1936:
  Tours was near Orleans; the bishop held his court there; and Ivo, while visiting the court, lodged with a certain widow. One day he found his widow-landlady in tears. Her tale was that next day she must go to court to answer to the suit of a traveling merchant who had tricked her. It seemed that two of them, Doe and Roe, lodging with her, had left in her charge a casket of valuables, while they went off on their business, but with the strict injunction that she was to deliver it up again only to the two of them jointly demanding it. That day, Doe had come back, and called for the casket, saying that his partner Roe was detained elsewhere. She in good faith in his story had delivered the casket to Doe, but then later came Roe demanding it, charging his partner with wronging him, and holding the widow responsible for delivering up the casket to Doe contrary to the terms of their directions. She stated if she had to pay for those valuables it would ruin her. "Have no fear," said young Ivo, "You should indeed have waited for the two men to appear together, but I will go to court tomorrow, for you, and will save you from ruin." So when the case was called before the Judge, and the merchant Roe charged the widow with breach of faith, "Not so," pleaded Ivo, "My client need not yet make answer to this claim. The plaintiff has not proved his case. The terms of the bailment were that the casket should be demanded by the two merchants coming together, but here is only one of them making the demand. "Where is the other? Let the plaintiff produce his partner." The judge promptly approved his plea, whereupon the merchant, required to produce his fellow, turned pale, fell a-trembling, and would have retired. The judge, suspecting something from his plight, ordered him to be arrested and questioned; the other merchant was also traced and brought in, and the casket was recovered; which, when opened, was found to contain nothing but old junk. In short, the two rascals had conspired to plant the casket with the widow, and then to coerce her to pay them the value of the alleged contents. Thus the young advocate saved the widow from ruin.
  The fame of this clever defense of the widow soon went far and wide....
caption: St Ivo Giving Alms to the Poor by Josse van der Baren
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