MARBODO of RENNES (Rhedenensis). — Bishop and poet, who together with Hildebert of Lavardin and Baudri of Bourgueil (d. 1130), is considered one of the greatest Latin writers of the early 12th century. Born c. 1035 in Brittany, died in 1123.
Having become "scholasticus" of Angers, archdeacon and bishop of Rennes (1096), he acquired wide renown with his poems, mostly in "leonine" verse, in which he treated the most diverse subjects: hagiographical (Passio s. Laurentii, b. Maurilii, Machabaeorum, s. Victoris, s. Mauritii et sociorum eius, Felici et Adaucti), literary (De ornamentis verborum), mineralogical (Liber lapidum, later called Lapidarius). In prose he wrote many lives of saints (Licinio of Angers, Roberto of Casa Dei, Magnobodo, Gualtiero, Florenzo of Monte Glonna) and an interesting collection of letters (in epistle II he defends the thesis: "quod improbitas ministri non impedit veritatem Sacramenti"). All of Marbodo's works are edited, with little critical sense, in PL 171, 1457-1782.