MARTENE, mār"tên', EDMOND: French Benedictine scholar; b. at Saint Jean de Lône (17 m. s.e. of Dijon) Dec. 22, 1654; d. in Paris June 20, 1739. He entered the Benedictine order Sept. 8, 1672, and was influenced by the work of Johannes Trithemius on the Benedictine rule to write on the subject himself. The superiors of his abbey, St. Remi at Reims, sent him to Saint Germain des Prés at Paris, the headquarters of the literary activity of the congregation of Saint-Maur, to assist in editing the Fathers. There he studied under D'Achery and Mabillon, and published his first book, a commentary on the rule of St. Benedict (1690). Almost simultaneously appeared his De antiquis monachorum ritibus (2 vols., Lyons, 1690), a mine of information on monastic antiquities. Next he spent some time in the monastery of Marmoutier, where he was influenced in an ascetic direction by Claude Martin, whose life he wrote. (Paris, 1697). Not long after he was sent to the house of Saint-Ouen at Rouen to help Dom de Saints-Marthe in his edition of Gregory the Great. He now published his De antiquis ecclesiæ ritibus (3 vols., Rouen, 1700-02), an expansion of his earlier work; the cognate Tractatus de antiqua ecclesiæ disciplina in celebrandis officiis (Lyons, 1706); and a completion of D'Achery's Spicilegium (Rouen, 1700). In 1708 he was chosen as a collaborator on the Gallia christiana, and spent six years in documentary research throughout France. The result of his investigations appeared in the Thesaurus novus anecdotorum (5 vols., Paris, 1717), as well as in the celebrated Voyage littéraire de deux religieux bénédictins (ib. 1717). A further achievement of Martène and his fellow-worker Durand was the Veterum scriptorum et monumentorum . . . amplissima collectio (9 vols., Paris, 1724-33). His last

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published work was the sixth volume of his Annales in 1739; his Histoire de la congMgatitm de Sairtt Maur remained in manuscript until 1747. By his death the order lost one of its most learned mem bers and at the same time a saintly, humble, and amiable man.

(Franz Görres.)

Bibliography: D. Tessin, Hist. litt&aire de la conpr6gation de S. Maur, pp. 542-571, Brussels, 1770; C. G. JScher, Gelehrtenlexikon, iii. 218-219, Leipsic, 1751, iv. 810-814, Bremen, 1813; C. de Lama, Bibliothdque des 'Ecrivainr de S. Maur, pp 145-147, Paris, 1882; K. schorn, Bifia sacra, ii. 80-82, 148 sqq., 340, Bonn, 1888; HL, viii. 911-913; Lichtenberger, ESR, viii. 742-743.