Marbod of Rennes: Carmina Varia

This collection gathers shorter poems of Marbod, teacher at Angers and bishop of Rennes, who died in 1123. They include a verse letter to R., bishop of Lincoln, a description of the beauty of spring, poems to an absent friend and to a guest, a satire on a lover of a boy written in an assumed character, an epigram on a wooden house, a poem to a restless smith, verses for a fan, a poem to Faustinus, and many others on varied subjects.

The spring poem, in rhyming hexameters, lists flowers, the songs of orioles, blackbirds and nightingales, nesting birds, roses, vines and the dances of young women and matrons. Other pieces are satirical, as in lines on money corrupting the courts of bishops. These poems show the range of Marbod’s skill in classical and rhymed forms, and they are among the best examples of the poetry of the Loire valley schools around 1100.