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The two accounts are more explicit about the foundation of the abbey. No doubt they stem from a single source-form, itself based on a charter (false or authentic) signed by King Childebert. We shall try to see below under what conditions this "act" was granted. I hope that it will be sufficient to analyse it in the light of the two versions.
In the first Life (Life A), the text is of the form of a summary: "As the place belonged to the Treasury, the King ordered that an edict should be made that nobody, under any pretext whatsoever, should lay a hand on it. He sent a nobleman called Leoncien with Marcouf. Leoncien was to inform the inhabitants exactly what the Saint had asked for and what had been granted him."
Life B specifies certain points: "Having sent for a notary, the King ordered him to write out a royal document concerning the donation (of land) which the holy man had requested. In this way, the donation was protected by a very precise agreement. The King stipulated to all those subject to his orders that the aforesaid land with everything on it should belong to God, the saint, and all his successors in perpetuity; it should be their own property. He also ordered that all that Marcouf might afterwards ask for should be granted to him without hesitation.. Finally, he sent one of his noblemen, Leoncien, who was to settle the boundaries of this donation."
It can be considered as certain that the author of the common Life (which served as a source for both Life A and Life B) had in front of him a very precise document, considered in the abbey as a foundation document, even if it had been completely forged! (Note that we have no authentic charter of Childebert comparable to that which we find occurring in the Life of Marcouf). Incidentally, the name of the noble charged with carrying out the royal decrees is the same as that of Bishop Leoncien, titular bishop of the see of Coutances during the first years of Childebert's reign.
We must also consider this problem: why did Marcouf, at the end of his life, need to have such a specific donation confirmed? This second journey of the holy man, even though the story is found in both Life A and Life B, gives an impression of being superfluous, and gives problems both from the point of view of history, and in regard to the logic of it.
Life A has the advantage of being the clearer. On his return from Agna, Marcouf states that the number of monks has considerably increased. It is impossible for them to be supported on the small territory previously granted to them If the monastery is to survive, it must be enlarged; so the founder has again to set out and find the king. A miracle, which takes place near the river Isara (probably the Oise), is the means by which Childebert meets him, and grants him his request - that is, an extension of the earlier grant: all the "villae" adjacent to the place where the monastic community has been set up shall belong in their entirety to the monks who fight for God.
For the author of Life B this donation occurs already in the first charter; also Marcouf’s visit to the King is not aiming for a simple confirmation. What the author specifies is the authority of the new "charter" bearing the royal seal, and carrying the signature of the Queen "Ultrogode" (Childebert’s Queen was Ultrogotha) and the name of the place where it was signed - Compiegne. But Childebert I was never in residence there! As well as this contradiction, it must be added this whole story fits very badly into the narrative as a whole. After having stated that Marcouf is old, that he has been privileged by the Holy Spirit to know the time of his death - which must mean that he is nearing the end of his life - the writer has no hesitation in sending him out alone on the road to find the King. The hunt which Marcouf meets on his way has designs on only one unfortunate hare, when the Saint shelters under his monastic robe - which: copies almost word for word a miracle of St Martin related by Sulplicius Severus in the "Dialogues".
While a certain charm and the curious use of lines from Virgil by the huntsmen help the story along in Life A, it is absolutely banal in Life B. It would seem, then, that we have here an interpolation into an earlier Life of the Saint - the object being to confirm an apocryphal or obviously later document preserved in the abbey's archives.