"A first early Christian building, reported by Grégoire de Tours, was probably built at the end of the 5th century on the site of the tomb of Martin the Spaniard. It was burned down in the 6th century and rebuilt on the initiative of Ferréol, bishop of Limoges, then completed and enlarged during the Carolingian period.
From the end of the 11th century, the building was managed by a college of canons who adopted the rule of Saint Augustine. Probably from this time and throughout the 12th century are built the first buildings of the priory, in the north, and the collegiate church which includes the masonry of the buildings of the early Middle Ages.
A new nave was rebuilt in the 1st half of the 13th century on the foundations of the Romanesque nave, destroyed for an unknown reason.
Around 1500, a chapel was added to the north side of the nave and another to the north arm of the transept. Part of the priory including the prior's dwelling was rebuilt between 1479 and 1517. The elevation of the church choir and its interior fittings were financed by the Dubois family between 1726 and 1730.
The cloister was destroyed in 1764. The rest of the convent buildings, acquired by the city during the Revolution, were destroyed in 1835. Between 1860 and 1874, various restoration projects proposed by the architects Chabrol, Chevalt and Rogemond were unsuccessful.
Between 1876 and 1906 important and urgent restoration work was carried out by the communal architect Louis Bonnay under the direction of Anatole de Baudot: repair of the attic with stabilization of the piles of the nave which threatened to overturn, reconstruction of the western porch, of the bell tower and the axial chapel of the chevet, construction of a sacristy.
Creation of 12 windows by Oudinot in 1880. Additional sculpted neo-Romanesque decoration (capitals and corbels) made in 1906 by Max Braemer, Parisian sculptor. The clearing of the building by demolishing the adjacent houses, undertaken under A. de Baudot, continued until 1940.
In 1953 the vaulting of the nave which had been consolidated in 1878 by a system of transverse brick arches was again stabilized by a concrete structure. The works are supervised by Georges Duval, architect of the Historic Monuments. General restoration of exterior masonry in 1997."