5. A poetical Life of Wilfrid is printed by Raine, Historians of York, i. 105 ff. William of Malmesbury informs us that it was written by one Fridegodus.[1] Prefixed to it is a prefatory epistle by Archbishop Oda, in which he declares that he carried the body of Wilfrid from Ripon to Canterbury, thus rescuing it from shameful neglect. The style of this epistle is exceptionally turgid and obscure. For the controversy as to this removal see Raine, ibid. xxxix, xliii.
6. A letter of Oda to his suffragans, after a synod held in King Edmund's time, is quoted at some length by William of Malmesbury :[2] and various synodical constitutions are printed by Wilkins (i. 212 ff.).
7. Oda is mentioned as having been his patron by Abbo of Fleury, in an acrostic poem addressed to Archbishop Dunstan (Mem. of Dunstan, p. 410):
Solus Odo plus cenSor qui iure sacerdoS
Te pater ante fuiT; sat nos amplexus amaviT.
8. The Episcopal Lists contained in Tib. B. 5 were drawn up, probably at Glastonbury, about the year 990 ; being a continuation to Archbishop Sigeric' s time of the series contained in C.C.C. Camb. 183.[3] Here Oda appears as the second bishop of the see of Wilts ('Wiltunensis'), between Æthelstan and Ælric. In the list for Canterbury there is no name between Oda and Dunstan. That list ends thus:
Wulfhelm
Oda se goda
Dunstan
Æthelgar
Sigeric.
This is the earliest mention of the title of honour—Oda the Good—which a later writer tells us was given to Oda by Dunstan himself. It is interesting to note that in the same manuscript Sigeric, who had been abbot of Glastonbury, is entered in the list for Wilts as 'Sigericus dei amicus'.
2. Notes on 'Vita Odonis Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis'.
This Life is printed by Mabillon, Acta SS. O. S. B. vii. 286 ff., ex MS. cod. Thuano-Colbertino. It is assigned to no author in the manuscript, but the editor conjectured that it was written by Osbern
- ↑ Gesta Pont., p. 22.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 23.
- ↑ I have discussed these early episcopal lists in The Saxon Bishops of Wells (Oxf. Univ. Press, 1918), pp. 7 ff.
