Abbey of Saint-Martin de Limoges

For the early years of the monastery before its re-foundation, there is no other source than the 13th-century chronicle of the Abbot Pierre Coral.

He records that a monastery dedicated to Martin of Tours was founded around 640 by the parents of Saint Eligius, and that the latter's brother, Alicius, was the first abbot.

[1][2] How much of this history is true is impossible to say, but there was certainly an abandoned church outside the walls by the year 1000.

[9] In 1155, William was succeeded by Pierre de Pierrebuffière, a native of the Limousin and the prior of Sauxillanges.

[10] During his abbacy, in 1182, the monastery was heavily damaged when Henry the Young King suppressed a local rebellion.

William died the following year and Richard the Lionheart imposed the provost of Saint-Augustin, Raymond de Treignac, as abbot.

Although Richard favoured rebuilding the monastery, nothing was done in Raymond's term of four or five years as the abbot.