MABILLON, JOHN (1632-1707), Benedictine monk of the Congregation of St. Maur (see MAURISTS), was the son of a peasant near Reims. In 1653 he became a monk in the abbey of St. Remi at Reims. In 1664 he was placed at St. Germain-des Pres in Paris, the great literary workshop of the Maurists, where he lived and worked for twenty years, at first under d'Achery, with whom he edited the nine folio volumes of Acta of the Bene dictine Saints. In Maillon's Prefaces (reprinted separately) these lives were for the first time made to illustrate the ecclesi astical and civil History of the early middle ages. Mabillon's masterpiece was the De re diplomatica (1681; and a supplement, 1704) in which were first laid down the principles for determining the authenticity and date of mediaeval charters and manuscripts. It practically created the science of Latin palaeography. In 1685 86 Mabillon visited the libraries of Italy, to purchase mss. and books for the King's Library. On his return to Paris he was called upon to defend against de Rance, the abbot of La Trappe, the legitimacy for monks of the kind of studies to which the Maurists devoted themselves : this called forth Mabillon's Traite des etudes monastiques and his Re flexions sur la reponse de M.
l'abbe de la Trappe (1691-92), works embodying the ideas and programme of the Maurists for ecclesiastical studies.
Mabillon produced in all some twenty folio volumes and as many of lesser size, nearly all works of monumental erudition. He died on Dec. 26, 1707, in the midst of the production of the colossal Benedictine Annals.
The chief authority for his life is the Abrege de la vie de D.J.M. (also in Latin), by his disciple and friend Ruinart (17o9). See also, for a full summary of his works, Tassin, Hist. litteraire de la congr. de St. Maur (1770), pp. 205-269. Of modern biographies the best are those of de Broglie (2 vols., i888) and Baumer (1892)—the former to be especially recommended. A brief sketch by E. C. Butler may be found in the Downside Review (1893). (E. C. B.)