IfBucelinus on Feb. 12th; MoLmus, Gr vjn % Saussaye, in his Supplement to the Galilean Martyrology, Menard us, on Feb, 7th. Witford, in his Anglican Martyrology on June and. The Bollandists [Jesuit scholars who since the 1600s have critically studied the lives of the saints] on July 4th, the day of the death of S. Odo. Authorities A life probably by Osbera the monk (nth cent.); also mention in Osberu’s life of S. Dunstan; W.Uiam of Malmesbury, Matthew of Westminster, &c. Osbern’s narrative contains several historical errors. The sketch oi Odo’s life by William of Malmesbury in the ' Gesta episcoporum ' differs much from that by Obbern, and is evidently founded on other authorities.] This remarkable man was born of Danish parents. H is father was one of the chieftains who accompanied Ingvar and Hubba in the destructive invasion of the northern hordes in 870; and, with the worst prejudices of those ferocious barbarians, he disinherited his child, and drove him from his home, because he had listened to, and learned to love, the instructions of Christian teachers. Odo fled to the house of Athulf or Ethelwulf, one of Alfred’s nobles, who adopted and protected him, and gave him teachers, under whose care he attained to great proficiency in the Latin and Greek languages, and became eminent for the facility with which he composed either prose or verse.

After having been baptized, Odo received the tonsure [shaving part of the head as a sign of entering the clergy or monastic life] and minor orders [the lower ranks below deacon, such as reader and acolyte, abolished in 1972]. At the court of King Alfred he attracted the attention of the king and nobles by his learning and the sanctity of his life. When Athulf obtained the king's licence to visit Rome, he took Odo with him, and it was at Rome that Odo was ordained priest, according to his biographer, Osbern; but this appears to be an error, for it is probable that he was born some time after his father had settled in East Anglia with the other Danes [Viking raiders from Scandinavia] who had been defeated by Alfred, and therefore he could not have reached the requisite age. William of Malmesbury, moreover, tells us that he had served as a soldier along with Edward the Elder in some of his warlike expeditions before he took clerical orders.

It is certain that Odo enjoyed without interruption the friendship of King Edward, and afterwards of King Athelstan, who elevated him to the bishopric of Wilton, one of the sees into which the great diocese of Sherborne had been divided. He was one of the bishops who were with Athelstan in the great battle of Brunanburgh in 937, against Constantine, king of the Scots, Owen, king of Cumberland, and the Danes under Anlaf. According to William of Malmesbury, Anlaf disguised himself as a glee-man and came into the English camp before the battle, and played his harp and sang before Athelstan, who did not recognise him, and gave him money. As Anlaf went away, he buried the gold, because it was against his honour to receive wage. He was observed by a soldier, who warned Athelstan to change the position of his tent, as it was known to AnlafL “ But why, when my enemy was in thy power, didst thou not lay hands on 1 ™!?'' asked Athelstan. “Sire l" replied the soldier, “Anlaf was my former master." Athelstan took the soldier's advice; and the same evening Werstan, bishop of Sherborne, came with his men to join the king, and pitched his tent where Athelstan’s had been. In the night the Danes broke into the camp, and made for the place where had been the king's quarters, and slew Werstan, the bishop, and all his men. But finding that the king was not there, they went on, mowing their way with their great swords, in the direction of his tent Athelstan, hearing the noise and tumult, started from sleep and armed for battle. A furious hand-to-hand encounter took place, in which the king's sword was snapped off at the halft Bishop Odo was in prayer some way off, when the crowd of panic-struck English flying past, told him that the rout and ruin of the royal cause was imminent He rushed into the thick of the fray, and found the king helpless through the loss of his sword. “ Sire ! what are you doing ! why are you dazed ? The sword is at your side 1” And lo ! attached to his girdle hung a sword in the sheath, and how it came there he never knew. It was a gift from heaven ! the report spread, the fugitives rallied, the fighting men pressed forward with greater ardour, Athelstan, wielding the wondrous sword, headed his men, and a great victory was gained. The sword was hung up in the king’s treasury ever afterwards. Athelstan soon found an opportunity of rewarding Odo for his service on this occasion, for on the death of Wulfhelm, archbishop of Canterbury, he nominated him to the archiepiscopal see.

After Athelstan’s death, Odo continued in favour with his two successors, Edmund and Edred. He accompanied the former in an expedition to Northumbria [the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of northern England and south-east Scotland], on which occasion he disinterred the bones of S. Wilfred from beneath the ruins of Ripon, and translated them to Canterbury.

As archbishop of Canterbury, Odo was distinguished by the zeal wherewith he advocated the cause of monachism. Previous to his time, the Anglo-Saxon cathedrals had been served by secular clergy, married. It is said that Odo accepted the see of Canterbury [a bishop’s “see” is his diocese, named from his seat (Latin sedes)] with reluctance; before his consecration he went to Fleury, then the centre of monachism, and took the habit from the hands of the abbot, 1 and he was the active assistant of Ethelwold and S. Dunstan in their effort to replace the secular clergy by i So says William of Malmesbury. Osbern, howerer, says that he only seat messengers to Fleury for the habit to be brought him. VOL. VII. 8 monks, in the canonries of the principal churches in England.

During the reign of Edred, the influence of Odo and Dunstan had given to the palace itself a religious character, but when the young and luxurious Edwy came to the throne, he set them at defiance.

Edwy had married Elgiva, who seems to have been a relative sufficiently close in connexion to make the union to be, at that time, regarded as unlawful. The intercourse between the king and Elgiva was, from whatever cause it is not easy to determine, sufficient to outrage the public sense of propriety, and signs of disaffection manifested themselves.

At his coronation feast, the king quitted the hall where his nobles were seated, as if weary and disgusted with their society, to visit his wife and mother-in-law in their chamber. The nobles were indignant at the insult, and Archbishop Odo, seeing that the king was likely to exasperate them into disaffection, rebuked him sharply, and Edwy was forced by Dunstan and Odo to return to the society of the Thanes.

In revenge for this indignity, Edwy not only banished Dunstan from the kingdom, but extended his hatred to the monks, whom he looked upon as his accomplices. The Saxon Chronicle places the banishment of Dunstan in 956. Odo remained, and stood resolute in supporting the monks. In 958, he annulled the marriage of the young king with Elgiva, as being contracted within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity; and then obtained the banishment of the beautiful young wife to Ireland. According to a not very trustworthy account, Odo branded her on the face, to destroy her beauty; she remained in Ireland till the scars were healed, and she had recovered her beauty, and then, making her escape, returned to Joljr*] England. But the emissaries of Archbishop Odo caught her at Gloucester, and hamstrung her with such barbarity, that she died a few days after. This horrible story, we may thankfully say, rests on the authority of Osbern, who wrote in the nth cent, and not on anything like contemporary evidence; and we may therefore hope it is not true. The biographers of Dunstan and Odo represent Elgiva as the concubine, and not the queen of Edwy, and represent her mother as accessory to the irregularities of the young king. But the proofs that these are calumnies are perfectly satisfactory. 1 The misgovemment, or the generally light and wanton conduct of Edwy, drove Mercia [the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the English Midlands] and all England north of the Thames into revolt, in 957, and Edgar, the brother of Edwy was chosen king. Wessex [the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of southern England] became also discontented, and would have followed in repudiating the king, had he not died in 959. Odo had preceded him to the grave by a year.

The political history of this period is extremely obscure, and it is difficult now to form an impartial judgment of Odo’s actions. In the early monkish historians he is distinguished by the epithet of the Good (Oda se Goda), which was first applied to him by Dunstan; but this epithet may have been given only because he was a zealous supporter of the monks at the expense of the secular clergy, whom he expelled from all the most important and lucrative cures, that he might supply their places with men under monastic rule.

Soon after he was promoted to the archbishopric, he raised the cathedral church of Canterbury from its ruins. He appears to have been a patron of letters, and we have the testimony of his contemporaries that he was a good scholar and an able writer; but the only fragment of his Uuiy composition which now remains is an introductory epistle in a harsh and inflated style, found in some manuscripts of Fridegode's life of S. Wilfred.