Odo (Oda), Saint, Archbishop of Canterbury, d. 2 June, 959 (not in 958, recent researches showing that he was living on 17 May, 959). According to the nearly contemporary account of him in the anonymous “Life of St. Oswald” (op. cit. inf.) his father, a Dane, did not strive to serve God, even endeavouring to hinder his son’s constant presence at the church. Later writers represent Odo’s parents as pagans and the boy himself as becoming a Christian despite his father’s anger. Odo was adopted by Aethelhelm, a nobleman, who regarded him with paternal affection and educated him for the service of God. After his ordination he accompanied Æthelhelm to Rome and on the way cured him when he fell ill, by blessing a cup of wine and causing him to drink therefrom. On his return, according to the same writer, he was made bishop of a city in the province of Wilton, so that he has been described as Bishop of Wilton, his consecration being placed in 920. There is no evidence for this date, and if he was consecrated by Archbishop Wulfhelm, as is stated, it could not have been before 923. There is a further difficulty as to his diocese, erroneously called Wilton. In 927 he was Bishop of Ramsbury, which being in Wiltshire might, loosely speaking, be described as the Diocese of Wilton. But Eadmer states that he was appointed Bishop of Sherborne, and there is an extant document (Cartm Sa.\m 666) which lends some support to this statement. If it be true, he must have filled the See of Sherborne between Aethelbald and Sigehelm. As the latter was bishop in 925 this only allows two years for a possible episcopate of Odo. At the court of Athelstan (925-940) he was highly esteemed, and the king chose him to accompany abroad his nephew Lewis, whom the Frankish nobles had recently elected as their king. In 937 he accompanied Athelstan to the battle of Brunanburh, where the incident occurred of his miraculous restoration, at a critical moment, of the king’s lost sword. The story, given by Eadmer, is not mentioned by the earlier anonymous writer. When Archbishop Wulfhelm died in 942, King Eadmund wished Odo to succeed, but he refused, because he was not a monk as previous archbishops had been. Finally he accepted the election, but only after he had obtained the Benedictine habit from the Abbey of Fleury. One of his first acts as archbishop was to repair his cathedral at Canterbury, and it is recorded that during the three years that the works were in progress no storm of rain or wind made itself felt within the precincts. The constitutions which he published as archbishop (Mansi, “Concil.”, XVIII; Migne, P. L., CXXXIII) relate to the immunities of the Church (cap. i), the respective duties of secular princes, bishops, priests, clerics, monks (ii-vi— vi), the prohibition of unlawful marriages, the preservation of concord, the practice of fasting and almsdeeds, and the payment of tithes (vii-x). A synodal letter to his suffragan bishops, and an introduction to the life of St. Wilfred, written by him, have also been preserved. Throughout the reign of Eadred (946-955) he supported St. Dunstan, whom he consecrated as Bishop of Worcester, prophetically hailing him as future Archbishop of Canterbury. On the death of Eadred he crowned Eadwig as king. Shortly after the archbishop insisted on Eadwig dissolving his incestuous connexion with Ælgifu and obtained her banishment. In 959 during the reign of Eadgar, whom he had consecrated king, realizing the approach of death, he sent for his nephew, St. Oswald, afterwards Archbishop of York, but died before his arrival. He was succeeded by the simoniacal Ælfsige who insulted his memory, and whose speedy death was regarded by the people as a judgment of God. The next archbishop, St. Dunstan, held St. Odo in special veneration, would never pass his tomb without stopping to pray there, and first gave him the title of “the Good”. The story which represents Odo as having in early manhood followed the profession of arms is only found in later writers, such as William of Malmesbury. Even if it is true that Odo served Edward the Elder under arms, there is no reason to suppose, with the writer in the “Dictionary of National Biography”, that he did so after he became a cleric. God bore witness to his sanctity by miracles during his life and after his death.
Eadmer, Vita Sancti Odonis (the earliest extant life) in WHARTON, Anglia Sacra, II, 78-87, also in Maxsiuton, Acta SS. O.S.B., 1685, and in the Acta SS. of the Bollandists who attribute it to Osbern (July, II), but this is corrected in their Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (Brussels, 1901), where the ascription to Eadmer is accepted. Contemporary notices will be found in the Vita S. Oswaldi in Historians of the Church of York (Rolls Series, 1879-94); Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ann. 958, 961 (R. S., 1861); STUBBS, Memorials of St. Dunstan (R. S., 1874); Gervase OF CaNnTERBury, Historical Works (R. S., 1879-80; WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY, De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum (R. 8., 1870), and De Gestis Regum Anglorum (R. S., 1887-89); WHARTON, Anglia Sacra (London, 1691); CHALLONER, Britannia Sancta (London, 1745), 4 July; KEMBLE, Codex Diplomaticus evi Saxonici (London, 1839-48); HARDY, Descriptive Catalogue (London, 1862-71) ; Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury (London, 1860-84) ; Stanton, Menology (London, 1892), 2 June; BIRCH, Cartularium Saxonicum (London, 1885-93); SEARLE, Anglo-Saxon Bishops, Kings and Nobles (Cambridge, 1899); CAPGRAVE, Nova Legenda Angliæ, ed. Horstman (Oxford, 1901).
EDWIN Burton.
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Count of Kent, b. in Normandy previous to 1037; d. at Palermo, February, 1097. The son of Herluin de Conteville and Herleva de Falaise, previously by Duke Robert the mother of William the Bastard, from whom Odo about 7 October, 1049, received the Diocese of Bayeux. He was present at the assembly of Lillebonne in 1066 at which William’s expedition to England was decided upon; he built, at his expense at Port-en-Bassin, fifty or a hundred vessels, accompanied the soldiers, exhorted them on the eve of the battle of Hastings, in which he himself fought. William gave him the castle of Dover and the Earldom of Kent, and three months later when he returned to Normandy he left as his viceroys Odo and William FitzOsbern. Both were merciless in stifling the insurrection of the Saxons. On his return to England in December, 1067, William made Odo a sort of viceroy; he gave him domains in the county of Kent, and several churches and abbeys. Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, protested successfully at the synod of 1072 against the spoliation of which he was the object; but Odo. retained what he had taken from the Abbeys of Ramsey and Evesham. In 1080 he traversed Northumberland with an army, avenging the murder of Bishop Talcher of Durham; he multiplied his cruelties and was called the Great Tamer of the English.
He had the ambition to became pope. A soothsayer had foretold that the successor of Gregory VII should be called Odo. The latter first tried to seduce by his munificence the notables of Rome, where he built a palace; then with Hugh, Count of Chester, and a number of knights he set out for Rome. William met him at Wight, brought him before his barons, and reproached him with his exactions; as the barons refused to arrest the bishop, he declared that as count he would arrest him himself, and he brought him prisoner to Rouen. He refused to release him, despite the protests of Gregory VII. On his death-bed he granted this request reluctantly; for he feared that after his death this “wicked man would make trouble everywhere”. Odo, according to Ordericus Vitalis, immediately plotted against the new king, William Rufus, his nephew; but in 1088, being besieged in Rochester, he was forced to accept as a grace the right to leave the town and depart from England. He established his credit in Normandy by the manner in which he assured to his nephew, Robert Courte Heuse, the possession of the city of Le Mans and defended his power against the house of Talvas. According to Ordericus Vitalis, in 1093 he blessed the incestuous union of Philip I of France, with Bertrada, Countess of Anjou, and obtained as a reward the revenues of the Church of Mantes. Urban II, at Dijon, absolved Odo. In 1095 he was present at the Council of Clermont at which the first Crusade was preached; he set out in September, 1096, but died at Palermo. Gilbert, Bishop of Evereux, and Count Roger of Sicily erected a tomb to him in the cathedral.
Despite the eulogies of William of Poitiers it may be said, without approving the severe judgment of Ordericus Vitalis, that the life of this prelate was scarcely that of a churchman. He even had a son, called John. Nevertheless his presence at the synods of Rouen of 1055, 1061, and 1063 is proved; on 14 July, 1077 he consecrated the cathedral of Bayeux; on 13 September, 1077, he assisted at the dedication of the Church of St. Stephen in Caen, and on 23 October, at that of Notre Dame du Bec. He was zealous in obtaining relics. He educated, at his expense, a number of young men who became distinguished prelates, and was liberal in his gifts to the Abbey of St. Augustine at Canterbury. It has been asserted that he placed in the cathedral the famous Bayeux tapestry, but a detailed study of this tapestry has led Marignan to conclude that it was composed according to the description and information contained in the “Roman du Rou” of Robert Wace, and that it was executed in the last thirty years of the twelfth century.
Wharton, Anglia Sacra, I (London, 1691), 334-39; Gallia Christiana nova, XI (1759), 353-60; Ordehicus Vitalis, Hist. eccles., ed. Lepriivosr (5 vols., Paris, 1838-55); Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest (6 vols., Oxford, 1878-79); Idem, Reign of William Rufus (2 vols., Oxford, 1882); Fowxr, The Bayeux Tapestry (London, 1898); Marianan, La Tapisserie de Bayeux (Paris, 1902); Krnasrorp in Dict. Nat. Biog., s. v.; see also Bibliography of William the Conqueror, ibid.
Georges GOYAU.