diff --git a/docs/themes.rst b/docs/themes.rst
index 3978e693..b2b43699 100644
--- a/docs/themes.rst
+++ b/docs/themes.rst
@@ -230,6 +230,8 @@ Variable        Description
 =============   ===================================================
 article         The article object to be displayed
 category        The name of the category for the current article
+mdate           The article modification date and time as it
+                appears in the filesystem
 =============   ===================================================
 
 Any metadata that you put in the header of the article source file
diff --git a/pelican/readers.py b/pelican/readers.py
index 46055962..2cf23a71 100644
--- a/pelican/readers.py
+++ b/pelican/readers.py
@@ -632,6 +632,8 @@ def path_metadata(full_path, source_path, settings=None):
                 os.stat(full_path).st_mtime)
         metadata.update(settings.get('EXTRA_PATH_METADATA', {}).get(
             source_path, {}))
+    metadata['mdate'] = SafeDatetime.fromtimestamp(
+        os.stat(full_path).st_mtime)
     return metadata