The first foundation here, either in the late 6th century, or by Saint Leobard (d. here in about 680) in 659, was a community of Irish monks under the Rule of St. Columbanus. Then known as Aquileia, after the town in Italy, it was one of the Merovingian abbeys and a Reichsabtei. In 728 century Saint Pirmin reformed the Columban monasteries in Alsace, including this one, introducing to them the Rule of St. Benedict. The first abbot under the new rule was Maurus, from whom the place took the name of Maursmünster in German, of which Marmoutier is the French version.