“An Urbane Fraud:  Limoges and Adémar de Chabannes’ Apostolic Liturgy for the Feast of Saint Martial, 3 August 1029”
James Grier

On 3 August 1029, the monks of the abbey of Saint Martial in Limoges attempted to perpetrate an outrageous ecclesiastical fraud: the recognition of their patron saint, Martial, as an apostle.  Under the leadership of Adémar de Chabannes, historian, homilist and musician, they revised the biography of the third-century missionary and first bishop of Limoges, making him a first-century Jew, cousin of Simon Peter, intimate of Jesus himself, Saint Peter’s personal delegate to Gaul, and an apostle.  Adémar created a new liturgy for the event that recognized and capitalized on the diversified spiritual life of the city.

Limoges was dominated by two powerful and competing ecclesiastical institutions, the abbey of Saint Martial and the secular cathedral, dedicated to Saint Stephen.  The private surroundings of the abbey hosted the Divine Office, for which Adémar adapted the existing episcopal Office for the saint, altering its texts to promote the apostolic cult.  These revisions particularly address the older monks at the abbey, who had long venerated Martial as a confessor-bishop.  The Mass of the day, however, took place at the cathedral.  For this very public event, Adémar created elaborate newly composed music.  The audience consisted of the civic public, including the pilgrims that frequented the tomb of Martial.  For them, he devised a brilliant ceremony to generate awe for the new apostle and his cult.  These contrasting strategies illustrate how Adémar exploited the range of spiritual life in Limoges to promote the apostolicity of Martial.