Marbod of Rennes

Marbod of Rennes contributed one and possibly two hymns to the Liturgica Horarum.  The Liber Hymnarius attributes Hi sacerdotes definitely to Marbod and possibly  Dum sacerdótum célebrant fidéles, both from the Communia pro pluribus pastoribus.

From F.J.E. Raby, who compares Marbod favorably with Hildebert of Lavardin (1056-1153):

“Marbod was born at Angers about the year 1035, and he studied in the cathedral school of his native town under a pupil of Fulbert of Chartres. Like Hildebert, he rose to the headship of his school, and became an archdeacon. In 1096 he was made Bishop of Rennes, and in his eighty-eighth year he retired to the Benedictine cloister of S. Aubin at Angers, where he died on September II, 1123. Like Hildebert's, his intellectual interests were divided between the classical and the Christian world, but he was fascinated above all by the symbolism which, for him as for his contemporaries, lay hidden in nature, and by the mysterious virtues and qualities of gems and precious stones. In his youth he wrote light verses, of which he duly repented in a poetical confession:

quae, iuvenis scripsi, senior, dum plura retracto,

poenitet, et quaedam vel scripta, vel edita nollem,

tum quia materies inhonesta levisque videtur,

tum quia dicendi potuit modus aptior esse.

We do not know what kind of verses the Bishop was thinking of when he referred to the indiscreet and badly composed productions of his thoughtless youth. They were perhaps school- exercises in which a certain amount of license was allowed. Or they may have been harmless love-poems or epigrams in imitation of classical models”.

Contemporary scholarship, unsurprisingly, has centered its attention on these earlier poems and what they may say or not say about Marbod’s sexual proclivities and his views on gender equality. . But judging from the verses cited above, the fact that he entered the cloister and above all from the following poem, he seems to have repented of the sins of his youth.

“The following poem demonstrates that Marbod had, like Hildebert, attained a considerable mastery of the two-syllabled rime”  (Raby).

cum recordor, quanta cura

sum sectatus peritura

et quam dura sub censura

mors exercet sua iura.

in interiori meo,

quod est patens soli deo,

dans rugitum sicut leo,

pro peccatis meis fleo.

cum recordor transiturum

me per mortis iter dururn

ct, quid de me sit futurum

post examen ilIud purum,

mentis anxius tumuItu,

quae virtutum caret cultu,

tristi corde, tristi vultu,

preces fundo cum singultu.

cum singultu preces fundo,

flecto genu, pectus tundo,

ore loquens tremebundo

ad te clamans de profundo.

Iesu Christe, fili dei,

consubstantialis ei,

factor noctis et diei,

quaero, miserere mei.

per parentis primae morsum

lapsi sumus huc deorsum,

gravant nobis culpae dorsum,

quas commisimus seorsum.

per secundum genetricem,

saeculi reparatricem,

veterem converte vicem

corpus lavans atque psychen.

sit laus Christo, nostro  patri,

sit laus suae sanctae matri,

qui nos tueantur atri

a suppliciis barathri.

A good prayer for Lent.