ABSTRACT
In his Vita Martini (10.8), Sulpicius Severus asserts that many nobles resided in Marmoutier, the monastery founded by the saint a few kilometers outside Tours. Since the publication of Jacques Fontaine's comments on the Vita in the 1960's, scholars have relied on Sulpicius' assertion in order to interpret fundamental questions related to Martinian monasticism. They suppose that the practice of manual labor in Marmoutier was determined by aristocratic values and that the material maintenance of the monastery depended on the resources of its richer members. The purpose of this paper is to examine the reliability of Sulpicius' assertion. I argue that there is no clear evidence corroborating it and that it must be considered, therefore, with great caution.
Keywords:
Martin of Tours; Monasticism; Aristocracies