Theodulf of Orléans, Spanish bishop and poet (b. 750)

Theodulf of Orléans (c. 750(/60) – 18 December 821) was a writer, poet and the Bishop of Orléans (c. 798 to 818) during the reign of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. He was a key member of the Carolingian Renaissance and an important figure during the many reforms of the church under Charlemagne, as well as almost certainly the author of the Libri Carolini, "much the fullest statement of the Western attitude to representational art that has been left to us by the Middle Ages". He is mainly remembered for this and the survival of the private oratory or chapel made for his villa at Germigny-des-Prés, with a mosaic probably from about 806. It was in Bible manuscripts produced under his influence that the Book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah (as Chapter 6 of the Book of Baruch) became part of the Western (Vulgate) Bible canon.