MARZIALE, bishop of LIMOGES, saint - He is commemorated in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on 30 June. According to St Gregory of Tours, he was one of the seven bishops sent from Rome to Gaul around the middle of the third century to preach the Gospel there.
To M. was assigned the city of Limoges; there, together with two priests whom he had brought with him, he is said to have preached and converted many. After his death he was buried in a crypt together with his collaborators. In 852 his body was transferred to a new church.
According to a biography written in the eleventh century, when controversies were rife in Gaul over the assertion of the apostolic origins of the various dioceses, probably by Ademaro di Chabannes, M. is said to have been a disciple of St Peter and to have been sent by him to Limoges: this is evidently a legend fashioned in a spirit of local patriotism.