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.
MARCABRU
(fl. 1130–49). Little can be said for certain about the origins of the troubadour Marcabru.
Relying in part on the lyrics, his two vidas are probably right to describe him as an early
Gascon singer of low birth. Evidence in the songs ties him to courts in southern France
and Spain, where he was evidently a jongleur. In some fortytwo surviving lyrics,
Marcabru is preoccupied largely with social satire and moral allegory. He vehemently
denounces a decline in societal mores. One vida also describes him as “maligning women
and love.” But it is still debated whether Marcabru’s many pronouncements on love in
society are entirely negative or rather idealize love along the lines of a Christian or
courtly model. His voice is raw and bitter, his images original and forceful, his language
aphoristic and difficult. He is sometimes read as a precursor of the trobar clus school.
Aside from his thirty-two sirventes, his lyrics include the romance A la fontana del
vergier, the crusade song Pax in nomine domini, and the pastorela Autrier jost’ una
sebissa. Marcabru’s thematic and stylistic influence on subsequent troubadour song was
massive and pervasive.
Roy S.Rosenstein
[See also: TROUBADOUR POETRY]
Marcabru. Poésies complètes du troubadour Marcabru, ed. Jean-Marie-Lucien Dejeanne.
Toulouse: Privat, 1909.
Harvey, Ruth E. The Troubadour Marcabru and Love. London: Westfield College, 1989.
Pirot, François. “Bibliographie commentée du troubadour Marcabru.” Moyen âge 73(1967):87–
- [“Mise à jour,” by Ruth E.Harvey and Simon Gaunt. Moyen âge 94 (1988): 425–55.]
Thiolier-Méjean, Suzanne. Les poésies satiriques et morales des troubadours du XIIe siècle a la fin
du XIIIe siècle. Paris: Nizet, 1978.
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