He received at least part of his early education at Angers under archdeacon and schoolmaster Rainaldus (d. c. 1076), who may have been trained by Fulbert of Chartres.
The position came with land, economic, political, and spiritual power which had been continued on from the time of Carolingian kings.
[8] Pope Urban II's goals were to promote his crusade and have the church gain more freedom and separation, and therefore power, from the secular world.
[9] Bishop Marbod attempted to implement reform principles in his diocese of Rennes, working to regain episcopal possessions that had been alienated by his predecessor-bishops, and helping transfer churches held by laymen to ecclesiastical hands.
He was critical of the more extreme practices of Robert of Arbrissel and other such itinerant preachers wandering northwestern France at the time, but his letters indicate that he was tolerant of and even favorable towards their religious ideals.
[10] He composed works in verse and prose on both sacred and secular subjects: saints' lives, examples of rhetorical figures (De ornamentis verborum), a work of Christian advice (Liber decem capitulorum)[11] hymns, lyric poetry on many subjects, and at least six prose letters.
Today the most widely accessible edition of Marbod's collected works is that in Migne's Patrologiae cursus completus Series Latina, vol.
Several of his poems speak of handsome boys and homosexual desires but reject physical relationships (An Argument Against Copulation Between People of Only One Sex).
This exemplifies a tradition of medieval poetry which celebrated same-sex friendship while denouncing the wickedness of sexual relations.
[17][18] It is evident in other French didactic writing, such as that from Robert de Blois, that sexuality was largely complex.
Jewish communities in Spain similarly wrote about pederasty and the beauty and allure of young men.