Baudri’s best-known prose work is the Latin Historia Hierosolymitana, an account of
the First Crusade written shortly after 1107, based on the French Histoire anonyme de la
première croisade. He also wrote a life of Robert d’Arbrissel for the abbess of
Fontevrault. As a poet, he is noted for his correspondence with a number of learned
females, including the nun Emma and Adèle, countess of Blois, daughter of William the
Conqueror and mother of King Stephen. His longest poem is a 1,366-line description—
whether real or imaginary has been debated—of Adèle’s palace and chamber with its
zodiac on the ceiling, world map on the floor, statues of the Liberal Arts, Philosophy, and
Medicine around the bed, and tapestries of Old Testament, Greek, Trojan, and Roman
myths and history around the walls. Other substantial works include a moralized
mythology, drawing on his favorite classical author, Ovid.
Baudri’s shorter poems are chiefly to and about students and friends from his clerical
circle and the female convent of Le Ronceray at Angers. He carefully preserved even the
short verses that he wrote for mortuary rolls. His religious verse includes a dedicatory
poem for the church of Saint-Samson-sur-Rille. His history of the bishops of Dol is lost,
but a vita of St. Samson and an account of the translation of the head of St. Valentine
survive. In all, 256 Latin poems by Baudri are known today.
Jeanne E.Krochalis
[See also: HILDEBERT OF LAVARDIN; LIBERAL ARTS; MARBODE OF
RENNES]
Baudri de Bourgueil. Opera. PL 166.1049–212.
——. Carmina, ed. Karlheinz Hilbert. Heidelberg: Winter, 1979.
——. Les œuvres poétiques de Baudri de Bourgueil, ed. Phyllis Abrahams. Paris: Champion, 1926.
——. Poems 50–64. In Medieval Latin Poems of Male Love and Friendship, trans. Thomas
Stehling. New York: Garland, 1984.
Dronke, Peter. Medieval Latin and the Rise of the European Love Lyric. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965,
Vol. 1: Problems and Interpretations, pp. 209–12, 216–17.
Ghellinck, Joseph de. L’essor de la littérature latine au XIIe siècle. 2nd ed. Brussels: Desclée, De
Brouwer, 1955.
BAYEUX
. The Treaty of Saint-Claire-sur-Epte (911) included Bayeux as one of the places named
as a settlement for the Viking leader Rollo. With its strategic position, Bayeux continued
to gain importance under the dukes of Normandy but experienced much destruction in the
process. Not until the 11th century could restoration of the cathedral take place under
Bishop Hugues (r. 1015–49), when Normans began to fund ecclesiastical buildings. By
the end of the Hundred Years’ War, the English had evacuated and left the area desolate.
Today, the city retains much of its medieval fabric, including the cathedral of Notre-
Dame, some timber-framed houses, and of course the Bayeux Tapestry.
Notre-Dame-de-Bayeux stands on the site of a Roman temple and later sanctuaries
(tradition holds that St. Exupère founded an oratory here), but little documentary
evidence survives prior to the 11th century. Orderic Vitalis
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 188