The *Vie seint Marcel de Lymoges* presents the life of Saint Martial, who according to legend was baptized in the presence of Jesus Christ, witnessed the resurrection, and shared in the powers granted to the apostles by the Holy Spirit. Sent by his cousin Saint Peter on an evangelizing mission to the French city of Limoges, Martial is responsible for the wholesale conversion of the entire region of Aquitaine.

In the early thirteenth century, Wauchier de Denain translated this text from the eleventh-century Latin *Vita sancti Martialis episcopi Lemovicensis* attributed to Adémar de Chabannes. The *Vie seint Marcel* is one of the earliest known literary texts composed in Old French prose.