Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Odo of Canterbury

by Charles Lethbridge Kingsford

ODO of Canterbury (d. 1200), abbot of Battle, also called Odo Cantianus, was probably a native of Kent, and became a monk at Christchurch, Canterbury. His brother Adam was a Cistercian monk at Igny; among his kinsmen were Ralph, another Cistercian of Igny, and John, chaplain of Harietsham, Sussex (Mat. Hist. Becket, ii. p. xlix; Chron. de Bello, pp. 167, 173). The first notices of him occur in the ‘Entheticus’ of John of Salisbury, which was composed some time before 1159. John was resident at the court of Canterbury from 1150 to 1164, and so may naturally have made Odo's acquaintance; in the ‘Entheticus’ he has several lines referring to Odo:

Odo libris totus incumbit, sed tamen illis,
Qui Christum redolent, gratia major inest,
             ll. 1675–82,

and in the ‘Policraticus’ (Migne, Patrologia, cxcix. 382), which was finished before September 1159, John writes:

Si potes, Odoni studeas donare salutem:
Accipiatque Brito te veniente crucem.

In 1163 Odo was sub-prior of Christchurch, and was sent by Archbishop Thomas to the pope to represent him as his proctor in the dispute with the Archbishop of York as to the bearing of the cross by the latter in the southern province (Mat. Hist. Becket, v. 45). In 1166 the convent was ordered to appeal against the archbishop, and in 1167 Odo applied to Richard of Ilchester for help (Foliot, Epist. 422, ap. Migne). Odo probably became prior in the same year, during which John of Salisbury wrote to him in this capacity to ask his assistance for the archbishop. He was appointed without the archbishop's assent, and in May 1169 withdrew from Christ Church. He is said to have vacillated between the king and the archbishop (Mat. Hist. Becket, i. 542, vi. 331, iii. 89). But for some unknown reason he had incurred the pope's displeasure, and was accused of neglecting the papal prohibition of the young king's coronation, and with being an accomplice in Becket's death (Spicilegium Liberianum, p. 610). After the martyrdom of Thomas, Odo naturally took a more pronounced position on the ecclesiastical side. On 21 Dec. 1171 he secured the reconciliation of Christchurch, in consequence of the archbishop's murder within its walls. The following year Odo and his monks were occupied with the troubles incidental to the election of a successor to Thomas. The monks were anxious to elect Odo, but, according to Gervase of Canterbury (i. 239–40), the king feared that Odo would prove too inflexible to serve his purposes. This was at Windsor, on 1 Sept. 1172. Odo refused to act without fresh instructions from his convent, and the meeting was adjourned to London on 6 Oct. In November Odo and the monks went to Henry in Normandy. Odo, in a long speech, urged that the new archbishop ought to be a monk; but no result was arrived at, and a further fruitless meeting was held in February 1173. Odo went again to Henry at St. Barbe in Normandy on 5 April, and was received by him with much favour, but returned to Canterbury on 15 April, the Sunday after Easter, with the matter still unsettled. The king now ordered the monks to meet the bishops of the province in conference. The meeting was held in May; the monks named Odo and Richard of Dover. Gilbert Foliot [q. v.], the bishop of London, as spokesman of the bishops, praised Odo, but announced that their choice fell on Richard (d. 1184) [q. v.], and Richard was formally elected on 3 June. Odo and the convent addressed two letters to the pope in Richard's behalf (Migne, Patrologia, cc. cols. 1396, 1464).

On 5 Sept. 1173 Christchurch was destroyed by fire, and on 1 July 1175 Odo attended a council at Woodstock to obtain the renewal of the charters on the model of those of Battle. For this purpose the monks of Battle were summoned to be present; their abbey had been without a head for four years, and the monks, impressed by Odo, chose him for their abbot. At first Odo refused the position, but after much persuasion yielded, and was elected abbot of Battle on 10 July. St. Thomas was alleged to have foretold to a monk of Christchurch Odo's impending removal (Mat. Hist. Becket, i. 458). Odo arrived at battle on 4 Aug.; he refused to accept his benediction from the Bishop of Chichester, and, with the king's consent, obtained it from Archbishop Richard on Sunday, 28 Sept., at Malling (Chron. de Bello, p. 161; Ralph de Diceto, i. 402). In the following year Odo was summoned by the Cardinal Hugutio to Westminster to answer a complaint of Geoffrey de Laci as to the church of Wye. He appealed in vain for assistance to Gerard Pucelle, afterwards bishop of Lichfield; to Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter; and John of Salisbury. But at last Waleran, the future bishop of Rochester, pleaded Odo's cause, and, Gerard now supporting him, effected a compromise. When Archbishop Richard died in 1184 the monks of Canterbury once more chose Odo for archbishop, but the king again refused to accept him. Baldwin (d. 1190) [q. v.], who became archbishop, was speedily involved in a quarrel with his monks. On 13 Jan. 1187 Odo was one of the commissioners appointed by Pope Urban III to remonstrate with Baldwin, and on 1 March was directed to execute the papal mandate, should the archbishop prove contumacious. As Baldwin's answer was doubtful, the commissioners contented themselves with rescinding a sentence already pronounced against the prior. Urban on 9 May rebuked Odo for his lukewarmness, and sent a fresh mandate. Ranulph de Glanville, however, forbade Odo to act, and in July the monks complained to Urban that Odo and his colleagues were afraid, though Odo might be trusted if he were given express orders what to do. Odo's concern in the dispute now ceased, though in January 1188 the monks appealed to him for his assistance. Odo was present at the coronation of Richard on 3 Sept. 1189 (Gesta Ricardi, ii. 79). In January 1192, when the see of Canterbury was once more vacant, the monks appealed to him for his support in the assertion of their rights (Epp. Cant. 357). Odo died on 20 Jan. 1200 (ib. 557, Martilogium Cantuariense; but the Winchester Annals—Ann. Mon. ii. 73—say in March). He was buried in Battle Abbey, where Leland (Collectanea, iii. 68) saw his tomb, a slab of black Lydd marble.

Odo was a great theologian, prudent, eloquent, learned, and devout. The Battle chronicler says that, although he was strict in life and conversation, he consorted freely with his monks, but did not sleep in the common dormitory, because he suffered from a disorder of the stomach which he had to doctor privately. He further praises Odo for his humility and modesty, and for his diligence in expounding the scriptures, relating that he could preach alike in French, Latin, and English.

There is some uncertainty as to the writings to be ascribed to Odo, owing to confusion with other writers of the same name, as Odo of Cheriton [q. v.] and Odo of Murimund (d. 1161). To the latter only a treatise on the number three ‘De Analectis Ternarii’ (now in Cott. MS. Vesp. B. xxvi.) can with any certainty be ascribed (cf. Chevalier). The following works—excluding some which are certainly not his—are attributed to Odo of Canterbury:

1. ‘Expositio super Psalterium’ MS. Balliol College, 37.
2. ‘Expositio in capita primi libri Regum.’ Leland says that he found these two works in the library at Battle. There was a copy of the latter work at Christchurch, Canterbury, and the same library contained Odo's ‘Expositiones super Vetus Testamentum’ (Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, i. 146, 194).
3. ‘Commentarii in Pentateuchum,’ MS. C.C.C. Cambridge, 54, formerly at Coggeshall Abbey; the same work is ascribed to Odo of Murimund in Bodleian MS. 2323.
4. ‘Sermones LXXIX in Evangelia Dominicalia.’
5. ‘Sermones XXIX breves Vitæ ordinem Domini Nostri exhibentes.’
6. ‘Expositio Passionis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi secundum magistrum Odonem ad laudem ipsius qui est α et ω.’
7. ‘Sermones xxvii super Evangelia Sanctorum.’ The last four are contained in Balliol College MS. 38; numbers 4 and 7 are contained in Bodleian MS. 2319; Arundel MSS. 231 and 370 contain sermons on the Sunday gospels by Odo ‘de Cancia,’ John of Abbeville, and Roger of Salisbury, but arranged without distinction of authorship. They have been attributed both to Odo of Canterbury and Odo of Cheriton, but the frequent introduction of short stories or fables points to the latter's authorship; they are, however, distinct from Odo of Cheriton's sermons published by Matthew Macherel in 1520, and also from his ‘Parabolæ,’ with which they are sometimes confused.
8. ‘Super Epistolas Pauli.’
9. ‘De moribus Ecclesiasticis.’
10. ‘Dicta poetarum concordantia cum virtutibus et vitiis moralibus;’ MS. Gonville and Caius College, No. 378.
11. ‘De Libro Vitæ.’
12. ‘De onere Philisthini.’
13. ‘De inventione reliquarum Milburgæ’ (see Leland, Commentarii de Scriptoribus, pp. 211–12, and Collectanea, iii. 5, and Acta Sanctorum, Feb. iii. 394–7).
14. ‘Epistolæ.’ Letters from Odo to his brother Adam are given in Mabillon's ‘Vetera Analecta,’ pp. 477–8, and in ‘Materials for the History of Thomas Becket,’ ii. p. xlix; letters from Odo to the Popes Alexander III and Urban III are given in Migne's ‘Patrologia,’ cc. 1396, 1469, and ‘Epistolæ Cantuarienses,’ No. 280. Schaarschmidt (Johannes Saresburiensis, p. 273) thinks Odo of Kent was not the ‘master Odo’ to whom John of Salisbury wrote in 1168 (Epistola, 284), regretting the loss of his fellowship through his own exile, and asking his opinion on some points of theology.

Oudin was mistaken in attributing to Odo a treatise on the miracles of St. Thomas (cf. Mat. Hist. Becket, vol. i. p. xxviii).

[Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Gervase of Canterbury, Giraldus Cambrensis, i. 144, Annales Monastici, i. 51, 73, Epistolæ Cantuarienses (all these in Rolls Ser.); Chronicon de Bello (Anglia Christiana Soc.); Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, iii. 235; Leland's Collectanea, iii. 68, and Comment. de Script. Brit. pp. 210–12; Oudin's Scriptores Eccles. ii. 1478, 1513; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 559; Hardy's Descriptive Cat. of British Hist. ii. 551–2; Bernard's Catalogus MSS. Angliæ; Wright's Biogr. Brit. Lit. Anglo-Norman, pp. 224–6. The abbot of Battle told Leland that there was a life of Odo in the library, but it does not seem to have survived. The writer has also to acknowledge some assistance from Miss M. Bateson.]

C. L. K.

Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.208
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line

Page	Col.	Line
428	i	5 f.e.	Odo of Canterbury: for Odo read Odo 'de Cancia'
		3-2 f.e.	for These sermons are remarkable for their frequent introduction read They have been attributed both to Odo of Canterbury and to Odo of Cheriton, but the frequent introduction
		l.l.	omit which helps to explain the
	ii	1-3	for confusion with Odo . . . . the latter author read points to the latter's authorship; they are, however, distinct from Odo of Cheriton's sermons