Odo of Cheriton (1180/1190 – 1246/47) was an English
preacher
A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as ...
and
fabulist
Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral ...
who spent a considerable time studying in Paris and then lecturing in the south of France and in northern Spain.
Life and background
Odo belonged to a Norman family which had settled in Kent and were named from their manor at
Cheriton. He, however, was brought up at the family’s new manor on the other side of the county in
Farningham
Farningham is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It is located south-east of Swanley.
It has a population of 1,314.
History
Farningham is believed to be home to Neolithic history – flint and other tools ha ...
. His father William had been a crusader with
Richard Coeur de Lion
Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was overl ...
and then added to the family’s fortunes as a supporter of
King John. His son Odo studied at the
University of Paris
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
, where he had gained the degree of Master (''Magister'') by 1211, after which he was granted custody of the church at Cheriton. There is uncertainty whether his degree was in theology, but by the end of the decade he was describing himself as ''Doctor Ecclesiae'' (doctor of the church) when his popular sermons on the
Sunday Gospels were completed in 1219. There is evidence that many of these were preached in France. He also seems familiar with the dangers of going on pilgrimage, giving advice there on drugged drinks, dishonest hosts, avaricious
Hospitallers
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic Church, Catholic Military ord ...
, robbers and hostile villagers.
During the next few years Odo visited the south of France and also lectured at the short-lived university in
Palencia
Palencia () is a city of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Palencia.
Located in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, in the northern half o ...
. After it closed, he moved to the
University of Salamanca
The University of Salamanca ( es, Universidad de Salamanca) is a Spanish higher education institution, located in the city of Salamanca, in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It was founded in 1218 by King Alfonso IX. It is t ...
. In 1233 he returned to England, having inherited his father's widely dispersed estates. On one of the documents concerning property from this period appears Odo’s
seal
Seal may refer to any of the following:
Common uses
* Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly:
** Earless seal, or "true seal"
** Fur seal
* Seal (emblem), a device to imp ...
, an impress of
St Odo of Cluny seated at a desk beneath a canopy with a star in the right-hand corner above, in reference to his namesake, after whom his grandfather was also named. Following his death in 1246/7 he was buried in
Rochester Cathedral
Rochester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an English church of Norman architecture in Rochester, Medway, Rochester, Kent.
The church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rochester in the Church o ...
and his brother Waleran inherited his lands.
Works
![Odo's sermons](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Odo%27s_sermons.jpg)
Beside the 64 sermons on the Sunday Gospels, of which extracts were published under the title ''Flores Sermonum ac Evangeliorum Dominicalium'' in Paris in 1520, Odo had composed early treatises on the
Lord’s Prayer and the
Passion. In 1224 he compiled another collection of sermons (''Sermones Dominicales in Epistolas''), many of which were preached in Spain, where he was also credited with an exposition of the
Song of Songs (1226/7). About the same time he compiled a further set of sermons on
Feast Days
The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does ...
(''Sermones de Festis''). His final religious work, written about 1235, after his return to England, was a handbook for priests on
penitence
Penance is any act or a set of actions done out of repentance for sins committed, as well as an alternate name for the Catholic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession. It also plays a par ...
.
The work for which Odo is best known, however, was a collection of moralized fables and anecdotes, sometimes titled ''Parabolæ'' from the opening words of the prologue (''Aperiam in parabolis os meum''), which was evidently designed for preachers. Though partly composed of commonly known adaptations and extracts, it shows originality of interpretation and the moralisations are full of pungent denunciations of the prevalent vices of
clergy
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
and
laity. The collection contains some 117 fables and variants, twenty-six of them from
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to ...
, others taken from the Roman writers
Seneca
Seneca may refer to:
People and language
* Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America
** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people
Places Extrat ...
,
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
and
Juvenal
Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ), was a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century CE. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the '' Satires''. The details of Juvenal's life ...
, from the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
and from English folktales, as well as from his Mediaeval near-contemporaries
Petrus Alphonsi
Petrus Alphonsi (died after 1116) was a Jewish Spanish physician, writer, astronomer and polemicist who converted to Christianity in 1106. He is also known just as Alphonsi, and as Peter Alfonsi or Peter Alphonso, and was born Moses Sephardi. ...
,
Jacques de Vitry and
Stephen of Bourbon
Stephen of Bourbon (French: ''Étienne de Bourbon''; Latin: ''Stephanus de Borbone''; 1180 – 1261) was a preacher of the Dominican Order, author of the largest collection of preaching ''exempla'' of the thirteenth century, a historian of medieva ...
. It exists in numerous manuscripts and the work was published by Léopold Hervieux in 1896. A thirteenth-century French version is extant, as is a 14th-century
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
version called ''Chwedlau Odo'' ("Odo's Tales") and an early Spanish translation.
The primary purpose of the ''Parabolæ'' was to provide
examples
Example may refer to:
* '' exempli gratia'' (e.g.), usually read out in English as "for example"
* .example, reserved as a domain name that may not be installed as a top-level domain of the Internet
** example.com, example.net, example.org, e ...
of right and wrong conduct for use in sermons. Odo’s interpretations sometimes verge on the satirical and he does not spare his own kind, condemnation of the behaviour of the
Cistercians being particularly pointed. On account of this it used to be speculated that he was a member of that order himself, but there is no evidence that he ever belonged to any order. Some of the parallels drawn in his work tell no story but contain the kind of lore found in Mediaeval
bestiaries
A bestiary (from ''bestiarum vocabulum'') is a compendium of beasts. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals and even rocks. The natural history ...
. One section states baldly that “A wild colt throws himself into the water or into a pit unless he is held back by a bridle”. What follows becomes a commentary on the need for discipline in order to escape the pains of Hell (fable 56). Again, the information that the eagle trains its chicks to gaze at the sun, throwing out of the nest any who cannot manage this, is made the occasion for an exhortation to aspire to heavenly contemplation (Fable 17). It has also been observed that, in contrast to
Marie de France
Marie de France (fl. 1160 to 1215) was a poet, possibly born in what is now France, who lived in England during the late 12th century. She lived and wrote at an unknown court, but she and her work were almost certainly known at the royal court o ...
’s interest in hierarchic relations in her
Ysopet
''Ysopet'' ("Little Aesop") refers to a medieval collection of fables in French literature, specifically to versions of Aesop's Fables. Alternatively the term Isopet-Avionnet indicates that the fables are drawn from both Aesop and Avianus.
The fa ...
, which privileges the ‘noble’ animals, there is a broader range of the humbler domestic creatures in Odo.
[Salisbury 2016, pp.60-62]
References
Sources
* Full text of the ''Flores Sermonum ac Evangeliorum Domenicalium'' (1st printed edition, 1520) a
Google(page views)
* Albert C. Friend, "Master Odo of Cheriton", ''Speculum'' (University of Chicago) Vol. 23, Oct., 1948
pp. 641-658
* John C. Jacobs
''The Fables of Odo of Cheriton'' Syracuse University 1985
*
Joyce E. Salisbury, « Human animals of Medieval fables » in ''Animals in the Middle Ages'', Routledge 2016
pp.49-65
External links
Some translated fables at Wikisource
{{Authority control
English Christians
Christian writers
Odo
1180s births
1240s deaths