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Odo of Cambria

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a French ecclesiastic of note, was born at Orleans about the middle of the 11th century. He was first known under the name of Oudard. Having entered the Church at an early age he became professor at Toul, and afterwards superior of the cathedral school at Tournay. His reputation attracted a large number of pupils from various parts, even from Germany and Italy. He was especially renowned for dialectics, in which he followed the method of the Realists. About 1092 he ceased teaching, and with five of his followers retired into the old abbey of St. Martin of Tournay, where they followed at first the rule of St. Augustine. By the advice of Aimery, bishop of Anchin, Odo became a regular monk in 1095, and was appointed abbot. The congregation, composed at that time of some twenty persons, rapidly increased. Odo made them follow the customs of Clugny, and maintained the rule strictly. On July 2, 1105, the Council of Rheims made him bishop of Cambrai in the place of Gaucher, who, nevertheless, protected by the emperor Henry IV, retained his dignity until Henry V ascended the throne, when Odo was installed in his see in 1106. Odo refusing, however, to receive from that prince the investiture which he had already received from his metropolitan, he was expelled from Cambrai, and retired to the abbey of Anchin, where he busied himself in writing religious works. He died there June 19, 1113 His. contemporaries ranked him among the saints; he is honored as such in several churches of the Netherlands, and is mentioned by the Bollandists. Odo had the reputation of being learned in theology, mathematics, and poetry, and Dom Rivet states that he knew Greek and Hebrew. He wrote, Sacri canonis missae expositio (Paris, 1490, 1496, 12mo; several times reprinted):De peccato originali, lib. iii: — Contra Judoeum nomine Leonem de adventu Christi: — De blasphemia in Spiritum Sanctum: — In canones Evangeliosrum: — Homilia de villico iniquitatis; five tracts inserted in Schott, Bibl. (ed. 1618), vol. xv: — :Epistola Lamberta episcopo Atrebatensi, in Baluze, Miscellanea, v. 345. Among the MSS. attributed to him, although their authenticity is not fully established, are a poem on the creation, parables, an introduction to theology, several homilies, conferences, etc. Among the works supposed to be lost, is a poem, De bellis Trojanis, which is quoted with praise in an elegy on Odo written by Godefrey, a pupil of the school of Rheims. See Amand du Chastel, Vita beati Odonis, in Actis SS. Junii, 3:911-916; Tritheim, Scrip. Eccles. c. 370, p. 94 (ed. Fabricius); Molanuls, Natales SS. Belgii, p. 221; Sanders;,-Bibl. Belgica; Mabillon, Annales, v. 650, 651; Gallia Christiana, 3:25-27, 273; Hist. litter. de la France, 9:583606.