Oda the Severe

Oda the Severe

Infobox Archbishop of Canterbury
Full name = Oda


began=unknown
birth_name =
consecration = 941
term_end = 958
predecessor = Wulfhelm
successor = Aelfsige
birth_date = unknown
death_date = 2 June 958
tomb =

Infobox Saint Archbishop of Canterbury
feast_day= 4 July
venerated_in= Roman Catholic Church
titles= Bishop; Archbishop
beatified_date=
beatified_place=
beatified_by=
canonized_date=
canonized_place=
canonized_by=
attributes=Archbishop holding a chalice
patronage=
major_shrine=
suppressed_date=
issues=

Saint Oda or Odo, called the Good or the Severe (d. 958) was a 10th-century Archbishop of Canterbury in England.

Biography

Oda's parents were Danish, and he may have been born in East Anglia.Brooks "Early History of the Church of Canterbury" p. 222-224] His father was said to have been a Dane that came to England in 865, and presumably settled in East Anglia. Oda's nephew Oswald of Worcester later became Archbishop of York. In the "Life of Saint Oswald", Oda is said to have joined the household of a pious nobleman, whom he accompanied to Rome on pilgrimage. While on pilgrimage, Oda healed the nobleman's illness. Other stories have Oda fighting under Edward the Elder then becoming a priest.Cubitt and Costambeys "Oda (d. 958)" "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography"] Some sources state that he became a monk at Fleury-sur-Loire in France.Stenton "Anglo-Saxon England" p. 448]

Whatever his upbringing, Oda was consecrated Bishop of Ramsbury between 909 and 927.Fryde, et. al. "Handbook of British Chronology" p. 220] He was said to have fought alongside King Æthelstan to the battle of Brunanburh in 937.Delaney "Dictionary of Saints" p. 464] He arranged a truce between Olaf III Guthfrithson, king of Dublin and York, and Edmund I, king of England. While he was bishop of Ramsbury, Athelstan sent him to France to arrange the return of King Louis IV of France to the throne of France. Louis had been in exile in England for a number of years.Stenton "Anglo-Saxon England" p. 347]

In 941 he succeeded Wulfhelm as Archbishop of Canterbury,Fryde, et. al. "Handbook of British Chronology" p. 214] and he appears to have been an able and conscientious ruler of the see. He helped King Edmund of England with his legislation, as well as issuing ecclesiastical rules, or constitutions. His "Constitutions of Oda" are the first surviving constitutions of a tenth century English ecclesiastical reformer.Stafford "Unification and Conquest" p. 9-10] Oda reworked some statutes from 786 to form his updated code, and one item that was dropped were any clauses dealing with paganism.Blair "Church in Anglo-Saxon Society" p. 481 footnote 252] Other items covered were relations between laymen and the clergy, the duties of bishops, the need for the laity to make canonical marriages, how to observe fasts, and the need for tithes to be given by the laity.

At the death of King Edred of England in 955, Oda was one of the reciepients of a bequest, in his case it was a large amount of gold.Fletcher "Bloodfeud" p. 24] He was probably behind the reestablishment of a bishopric at Elmham, as the line of bishops in that see starts with Eadwulf of Elmham in 956.Stenton "Anglo-Saxon England" p. 437] He had great influence with King Edwy, whom he had crowned in 956, but in late 957 Oda joined Edwy's rival and brother Edgar who had been proclaimed king of the Mercians in 957, while Edwy continued to rule Wessex. In early 958 Oda annulled the marriage of Edwy and his wife Elgiva who were too closely related.Stafford "Unification and Conquest" p. 48-49]

The annulment of Edwy's marriage was evidently political. In the medieval church "incest" was defined as marriage with 9 degrees of consaguinity and Edwy's marriage was at these 9 degrees. However given the population size of England at this time this must have applied to most of the population. Elgiva, however was also Edwy's foster-sister, yet his brother Edgar also married his first wife in exactly the same circumstances. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip are in fact more closely related. Elgiva was later mutilated, sold into slavery and murdered. Edwy's cause of death shortly afterwards is unknown.

Charles Dickens in "A Child's History of England" attributes Elgiva's murder directly to Oda and says that Edwy died "of a broken heart".

He was a supporter of Dunstan's monastic reforms,Darlington "Ecclesiastical Reform" "The English Historical Review" p. 387] and was a reforming agent in the church along with Cenwald bishop of Worcester and Ælfheah bishop of Winchester. He also built extensively, and re-roofed the cathedral after raising the walls higher. In 948, Oda took Saint Wilfrid's relics from Ripon.Blair "Church in Anglo-Saxon Society" p. 314] Frithegod's verse "Life of Wilfrid" has a preface that was written by Oda, in which the archbishop claimed that he rescued the relics from Ripon, which he described as "decayed" and "thorn-covered".Brooks "Early History of the Church of Canterbury" p. 53] He was also an active in reorganizing the diocesan structure of his province, as the sees of Elmham and Lindsey were reformed during his archbishopric.Darlington "Ecclesiastical Reform" "The English Historical Review" p. 386]

It was Dunstan who gave him the posthumous nickname "The Good", but he was otherwise known as "The Severe".

He died on 2 June 958 and is regarded as a saint, with a feast day of 4 July.Walsh "A New Dictionary of Saints" p. 454-455]

Notes

References

*
*
* Cubitt, Catherine and Marios Costambeys, "Oda (d. 958)" "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20541 Online Edition] accessed 7 November 2007
*
* Delaney, John J. "Dictionary of Saints" Second Edition Doubleday: New York 2003. ISBN 0385135947
* Fletcher, Richard "Bloodfeud: Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England" Oxford: Oxford University Press 2003 ISBN 0-19-516136-X
*
* Stafford, Pauline "Unification and Conquest: A Political and Social History of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries" London: Edward Arnold 1989 ISBN 0-7131-6532-4
* Stenton, F. M. "Anglo-Saxon England" Third Edition Oxford:Oxford University Press 1971 ISBN 978-0-19-280139-5
* Walsh, Michael. "A New Dictionary of Saints: East and West". London: Burns & Oates. 2007. ISBN 086012438X

External links

* [http://www.berkshirehistory.com/bios/oda.html Royal Berkshire History: St. Odo the Good]
* [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_%281913%29/Odo_of_Canterbury Odo of Canterbury in the Catholic Encyclopedia]
* [http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=4892 St. Odo the Good at Catholic Online]
* [http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/sainto15.htm Oda of Canterbury at Patron Saints Index]
* [http://www.pase.ac.uk/pase/apps/persons/CreatePersonFrames.jsp?personKey=14338 Prosopography of Anglo Saxon England: Oda]
* [http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/30_10_0901-0961-_Odo_Cantuariensis_Archiepiscopus.html Opera Omnia by Migne Patrologia Latina with analytical indexes]

Persondata
NAME= Oda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Odo
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Bishop of Ramsbury; Archbishop of Canterbury
DATE OF BIRTH=
PLACE OF BIRTH= East Anglia
DATE OF DEATH= 28 June 958
PLACE OF DEATH= Canterbury, Kent


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