The biographer therefore sat down to his task with a mind full of matter.
What are the particular challenges facing the biographer and what is the nature of his or her relationship with his/her subject and the reader?
He laid himself out to diffuse the system, and also to carry out a reform of its abuses by en- forcing a strict observance of the Rule of St Benedict (of whom, it may be noted, he was the earliest biographer).
Among the most prominent of these men in addition to Brae, Chevalier and Chabannes, were Tristan Lermite, Jean de Daillon, Olivier le Dain (the barber), and after 1472, Philippe de Commines, drawn from the service of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, who became his most intimate adviser and biographer.
The best attested date for his death is the 9th of June 373 It is clear that this chronology leaves no room for the visit to Egypt, and the eight years spent there in refuting Arianism, which are alleged by his biographer.
