Medieval France
(ca. 1035–1123). An important representative of the humanistic revival of the early 12th century in the Angers region, Marbode was born at Angers and remained in the cathedral school there as pupil, teacher, and by ca. 1067, master. Among his pupils was Baudri of Bourgueil; he was acquainted with Hildebert of Lavardin, bishop of Le Mans (1096–1125) and Tours (1125–33). Marbode was elected bishop of Rennes in 1096 but retired to Angers shortly before he died.
Marbode’s best-known works in the Middle Ages were his hexameter lapidary, written between 1067 and 1081, and his treatise on rhetoric, De ornamentis verborum. Over a hundred manuscripts of the Latin text of the lapidary survive. The earliest of the four verse translations into French was by Philippe de Thaün; there are also at least five French prose translations, as well as versions in Spanish, Italian, Provençal, Irish, Danish, and Hebrew.
The Liber decem capitulorum (1102) opens with a discussion of subjects that Marbode considered suitable for writing about. The chapters treat time, harlots, good women, old age, fate, the pleasures of the flesh, true friendship, good death, and bodily resurrection. Some of his shorter and lighter verses are addressed to nuns and girls at the convent of Le Ronceray at Angers. He also composed hymns and poems on saints, usually in leonine hexameters. The only prose works to survive are his letters and a sermon on St. Florent.
Jeanne E.Krochalis
[See also: BAUDRI OF BOURGUEIL; HILDEBERT OF LAVARDIN; LAPIDARY; LATIN LYRIC POETRY; PHILIPPE DE THAÜN]
Marbode of Rennes. Marbodi episcopi Redonensis Liber decem capitulorum, ed. Walther Bulst. Heidelberg: Winter, 1947.
——. Liber lapidum, ed.
J.M.Riddle, English trans. C.W. King. Wiesbaden, 1977.
——. Poems 45–49. In Medieval Latin Poems of Male Love and Friendship, trans. Thomas Stehling. New York: Garland, 1984.
Bulst, Walther. “Liebesbriefgedichte Marbods.” In Liber Floridus: mittellateinische Studien (Mélanges P.Lehmann), ed. Bernhard Bischoff. St. Ottilien: Verlag der Erzabtei, 1950, pp. 287–301.
——. “Studien zu Marbods Carmina varia und Liber decem capitulorum.” Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 2(1939):173–241.
Evans, Joan. Magical Jewels of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Oxford: Clarendon, 1922. [Includes the Latin (pp. 33–37) and the French translations (pp. 53–67).]
Pannier, Léopold. Les lapidaires français du moyen âge des XIIe, XIIIe, et XIVe siècles. Paris: Vieweg, 1882.
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