ADEMAR OF CHABANNES. - French Benedictine and chronicler, b. at Chabannes near Angoulême c. 988, d. at Jerusalem in 1034. He became a monk at the abbey of Saint-Cybard near Angoulême, where he acquired a wide learning. C. 1029 he wrote a most interesting letter on the apostolate of St Martial, asserting that this saint (patron of Aquitaine and of the abbey of Limoges, with which A. had close ties of friendship, to the extent of being considered a monk of this abbey rather than of Saint-Cybard) was one of the seventy-two disciples of the Lord: an assertion which A. defended in several councils and synods.
His chronicle of the history of Aquitaine is his own work only from chap. 16 of book III (i.e., from the year 830), while the preceding part is merely a compendium of earlier chronicles. Of great value also is his list of the abbots of St Martial at Limoges from the year 848. Some of his sermons and poems survive in his own hand, published only in part.
For the manuscripts: L. Delisle, Notice sur les manuscrits originaux d’Adémar de Chabannes, in Notices et extraits des manuscrits, 35 (1806, 1), pp. 241-358.
For the person: M. Manitius, Gesch. der lat. Liter. des Mittelalters, II, Munich 1923, especially pp. 284-94; W. Wattenbach-R. Holtzmann, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter. Deutsche Kaiserzeit, I, II, Berlin 1939, pp. 310-11. Cesario van Hulst