Abbey of Saint Martial, Limoges

The cemetery was the reputed burial place of early Christian martyrs, including Saint Martial, the first bishop of Limoges.

By the 6th century, according to Gregory of Tours, there was a funerary chapel above Saint Martial's tomb, in the care of a small community of clerics, who were recognised as a congregation of canons in the reign of the Carolingian ruler, Louis the Pious (814-840).

Portions of the relics of the martyrs, allegedly saved by faithful Catholic citizens of Limoges, were rehoused in the nearby church of St. Michel des Lions.

Excavations were carried out from 1960, on the initiative of the city council, in the hope of uncovering the remains of the abbey and the shrine of Saint Martial.

Excavations started again in July 2015 to carry out detailed studies of the remains before revamping of the Place de la Republique.

The abbey was the center of several important developments in medieval music, including liturgical chant, early polyphony and troubadours' songs.

The first chant manuscripts show revisions of the early 11th century, when Roger de Chabannes introduced his nephew Adémar as cantor and scriptor of notation.

Adémar de Chabannes composed not only sequences and prosulae, but also music for a festal octave for the Patron St Martial.

Martial school of music and its library contributed and collected an almost complete repertoire of West Frankish tropes and sequences, as well as the so-called Aquitanian polyphony (Pa 1139, 3549, 3719), because cantors of the region had been most inventive in quite original compositions, dealing with all kinds of troped poetry, and two part settings between discant and florid organum.