Martène, Edmond

MARTÈNE, EDMOND. - French Maurist Benedictine, writer and liturgist, b. at St-Jean-de-Losne on 22 Dec. 1654, d. at St-Germain-des-Prés on 20 June 1739. From the monastery of St-Rémy (1672) he moved to that of St-Denis and then to St-Germain, where he had Mabillon as his guide.

The fruit of intense research is the work De antiquis monachorum ritibus, libri V (Lyons 1690); followed, as a complement, by the Commentarius in Regulam s. Benedicti (Parigi 1690: PL 66, 251-932). Other historical works followed, such as the Histoire de l'abbaye de Marmoutier (Paris 1692) and the Vie du sein, père à Claude Martin (Tours 1697); but M.'s most important work is the De antiquis Ecclesiae ritibus libri IV, followed by the Tractatus de antiquo Ecclesiae disciplina (Lyons 1706). It is a precious collection of various liturgical uses and texts, which has lost nothing of its importance even today. In the last years of his life he prepared a second edition of this monumental work in 4 vols. (Antwerp 1736-38). He gathered new material on the numerous journeys made from 1709 through France and Belgium with his confrere Ursin Durand, visiting more than 100 cathedrals and chapters and 800 abbeys, and he then distributed it among the volumes of the Gallia Christiana and in the works: Thesaurus novus anecdotorum (5 vols., Paris 1717); Voyage littéraire de deux religieux bénédictins (2 vols., ibid. 1717). A new journey to Germany provided him with further material for the Veterum scriptorum et monumentorum amplissima collectio (9 vols., ibid. 1724-33). The VI vol. of the Annales Ordinis s. Benedicti (ibid. 1739) is also his. From the manuscripts he left behind were later drawn the edifying lives of Maurist monks: Vies des justes (3 vols., ibid. 1924-26, edited by B. Heurtebize) and the Histoire de la Congrégation de St Maur (5 vols., ibid. 1928-31). These works and his voluminous correspondence make M. an exceptional scholar, endowed with a great capacity for work and a fine critical instinct.

Silverio Mattei