The discovery in the library at Karlsruhe of a manuscript copy written at Reichenau by Regimbertus, a monk who died in 846, places the original before that date.

The biography is written in rhythmical prose; Charles-Félix Bellet thinks it belongs to the 7th century, while Charles De Smedt and Louis Duchesne maintain that the "Vita primitiva" is much later than Gregory of Tours (died 590).

After labouring for twenty-eight years as a missionary in Gaul, the saint died at the age of fifty-nine, surrounded by his converts of Poitou, Berry, Auvergne and Aquitaine.

Louis Duchesne thinks it not unlikely that the real authorship of this "apocryphal and lying" work should be attributed to the chronicler Adhémar de Chabannes, noted for his fabrications.

[citation needed] Be that as it may, this "Vita Aureliana" played an important part at the beginning of the 11th century, when the Abbot Hugh (1019–1025) brought before several councils the question of the Apostolic date of St.

Duchesne and M. de Lasteyrie assert that it cannot be maintained against the direct testimony of St. Gregory of Tours, who places the origin of the Church of Limoges about the year 250.

The diocese specially honours the following: St. Sylvanus (Silvain), a native of Ahun, martyr; St. Adorator disciple of St. Ambrose, suffered martyrdom at Lubersac; St. Victorianus, an Irish hermit; St. Vaast, a native of the diocese who became Bishop of Arras and baptized king Clovis (5th–6th century); St. Psalmodius, a native of Britain, died a hermit at Eymoutiers; St. Yrieix, d. in 591, chancellor to Theudebert II King of Austrasia and founder of the monastery of Attanum (the towns of Saint-Yrieix are named after him); St. Etienne de Muret (1046–1126), who founded the famous Benedictine abbey of Grandmont.

Martial's mission, but because, at the instigation of Abbot Odolric, it proclaimed the "Truce of God" and threatened with general excommunication those feudal lords who would not swear to maintain it.

The prebends were assigned by the Chapter, except those which belonged ex officio to the Bishop, the Dean, the Precentor, the Abbot of Benevent and the Prior of Aureil.

Martial, thought best to change it into a collegiate church, and in 1535 King Francis I and Pope Paul III gave their consent.

According to the chronicle of Pierre Coral, rector of St. Martin of Limoges, Anthony of Padua established a convent there in 1226 and departed in the first months of 1227.

On the night of Holy Thursday, it is said, he was preaching in the church of St. Pierre du Queyroix, when he stopped for a moment and remained silent.

The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia speculates that the famous apparition of the infant Jesus to Anthony of Padua also occurred in Limoges, at Châteauneuf.

Mention must also be made of the following natives of Limoges: Bernard Guidonis (1261–1313), born at La Roche d'Abeille, Bishop of Lodève and a celebrated canonist; the Aubusson family, one of whom, Pierre d'Aubusson (1483–1503), was Grand Master of the Order of Jerusalem and one of the defenders of Rhodes against the Ottomans; Marc Antoine Muret, called the "Orator of the Popes" (1526–1596).

Pierre Roger de Beaufort, nephew of Clement VI, also born at Maumont, reigned as Gregory XI from 1371 till 1378.

Maurice Bourdin, Archbishop of Braga (Portugal), antipope for a brief space in 1118, under the name of Gregory VIII, also belonged to this diocese.

On 10 February 1770, he issued the "Lettre-circulaire aux curés", in which he advised the clergy on the steps which had to be taken to form local charity bureaus.

[11] He placed the Bishop of Limoges, Louis-Charles du Plessis d'Argentré, at the head of the bureau of charity in his episcopal city.

Before the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State, there were in the diocese of Limoges Jesuits, Franciscans, Marists, Oblates of Mary Immaculate and Sulpicians.

The principal congregations of women which originated here are the Sisters of the Incarnation founded in 1639, contemplatives and teachers, who were restored in 1807 at Azerables, and have houses in Texas and Mexico.

The Sisters of St. Joseph, founded at Dorat in February, 1841, by Elizabeth Dupleix, who had visited the prisons at Lyons with other pious women since 1805.

In 994, when the district was devastated by a plague (mal des ardents), the epidemic ceased immediately after a procession ordered by Bishop Hilduin on the Mont de la Joie, which overlooks the city.