RUINART, THIERRY. — Maurist Benedictine, hagiographer, and editor of patristic works, born at Reims on 11 June 1657, died at the abbey of Hautvilliers on 29 September 1709.
Having entered the abbey of St-Remi at Reims in 1675, he was summoned in 1692 to St-Germain-des-Prés as a collaborator of Mabillon, to whom he was bound by friendship and veneration.
In addition to collaborating on Mabillon’s work, Acta Sanctorum O. S. B., vols. V and VI, R. owes his fame to many works, among which the most important remains the Acta primorum martyrum sincera et selecta (Paris 1689; followed by innumerable editions, the last being that of Regensburg of 1859; Italian translation, 4 vols., Rome 1777–79, and another, 4 vols., Milan 1859). Because of the wealth of its information and the time of its publication, the work met with the approval of the scholars of the period. Other works by R.: Historia persecutionis Vandalicae, Paris 1694; Sancti Georgii Florentii Gregorii ep. Turonensis opera omnia, necnon Fredegarii Scholastici epitome et chronicon, etc. (there 1699); Apologie de la mission de St Maur ..., avec une addition touchant st Placide, premier martyr de l'Ordre de st Benoist (there 1702); Dissertatio historica de Pallio archiepiscopali (there 1724); Synopsis vitae Urbani papae secundi (there 1724); Abrégé de la Vie de dom Jean Mabillon (there 1709).