MARTIN, CLAUDE. — Benedictine of the Congregation of St Maur, born at Tours on 2 April 1619, died on 9 August 1696 in the abbey of Marmoutier (Tours), of which he had been prior since 1690. From his mother, who later became the ven. Maria dell'Incarnazione (v.), he inherited a taste for the interior life, together with an aptitude for the active life. He was eleven when his mother entered the convent; later, renouncing the position of secretary to Richelieu, he entered the Congregation of St Maur (15 January 1641), where he exercised enormous influence as prior of various abbeys (from 1652), assistant to the superior general (1668–75), general definitor (from 1672), and president of five general Chapters (1687–96). The Congregation owed him not only stricter observance, but also its salvation during the crisis of 1682.
Far removed from theological disputes, he devoted himself to the editions of the ss. Fathers then being undertaken by his confrères, and wrote various little works on meditation and prayer that were translated into Latin: Les méditations chrétiennes (2 vols., Paris 1669); Conduite pour la retraite du mois (ibid. 1670); Pratique de la Règle de st Benoit (ibid. 1674); Méditations pour la fête et pour l'octave de ste Ursule (ibid. 1678), as well as others that remained in manuscript. He also published, revising them, his mother’s writings and letters (ibid. 1677–84).
Renata Orazi Ausenda