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The most ancient reference to Marcouf is in a manuscript called "Senonais" (edited by Mgr. Duchesne and Father Grosjean). This contains a collection of details on the saints of Bayeaux and Coutances; among these, falling on the 1st of May, this reference to Marcouf: "In Onellico Nanto monastero deposito Marculfi abbatis." It seems possible to translate "in Onellico" by "in the land of the Unelli", but there is not sufficient indication to be absolutely sure of this interpretation. However, assuming it to be correct, if we take as the centre of this region Saint-Come-du-Mont, then we bring the site of our monastery towards the East coast of the Cotentin, but the exact position remains undetermined.
There is not much to find in the martyrologies of Fontenelle, Jumieges or Mont Saint-Michel, which simply place the monastery "in Gaul." The only document which is precise here is the French martyrology which follows the "Neustria Pia" and, much later, Lecanu, and which indicates the site as follows: "Nanteuil at the border of the diocese of Coutances and Bayeux."
The only concrete result which we can draw from all this is negative: we are obliged to reject the traditional solution. This identifies Nantus with the village of Saint-Marcouf en Isle, but it is not, in any case, an early tradition. Everything is against this solution: the name, which suggests a valley for which we search in vain; the indication of Wace that it is by the edge of a river; and the distance from the border of the two dioceses.
We can hardly count on the two Lives of Saint Marcouf (edited by the Bollandists) to tell us much about the site of the abbey.
Life A
The first Life, which is found in the Acta Sanctorum (from the Vatican manuscript), we find known in a number of texts preserved at Reims, Paris, Brussels and Tours. A free translation is found in the "Lives of the Saints" published at the end of the 16th century, under the direction of Rene Benoit.
Marcouf presents himself to King Childebert as coming from Neustria. He asks for a place called Nantus "by the Oceanic sea, not far from a town called Coutances" (Lat. "urbs quae appellatur Constantina" ). Is it necessary to deduce from this that the abbey was sited on the West coast, between Coutances and the sea? I don't think so, because there is a very ancient tradition (unbroken from the 10th century) on the Isle Saint-Marcouf which we see towards the East; this holds that the isles were very close to the abbey - the monks came there by a procession from Nantus on the neighbouring shore. So what appears to have happened here is the author of Life A has confused the word "urbs", which indicates a town, with "civitas", which indicates a region. This occurs on several occasions when he speaks of the church in the town Constantine (Lat. "ecclesiae Constantinae urbis"), where the context suggests otherwise.
Life B
In the second Life (which is also found in the Acta Sanctorum, and manuscripts of Cambrai, Jumieges and Mont Saint-Michel), the references to Nantus locate the abbey "in pago Constanino", although Marcouf presents himself before the king as one born in Bayeux.