ODO OF CLUNY, Saint. - Second abbot of Cluny in 878-79, from a noble family of Maine, d. at St-Julien de Tours on 18 Nov. 942. Admitted in 898 among the Canons of St. Martin of Tours, he was distinguished for his intelligence; having retired to the monastery of Baume-les-Messieux, he followed to Cluny in 910 the great reformer Berno (v.), whom he succeeded in 927.
Under O., the Cluniac movement expanded rapidly, gaining the monasteries of Romainmoutier, of St-Géraud d'Aurillac, of St-Pierre of Tulle, of St-Sauveur of Sarlat, of St-Martial of Limoges, of St-Jean-d'Angely, of St-Allyre of Clermont and moreover, outside Burgundy and Aquitaine where Berno's influence had been confined, Fleury-sur-Loire, St-Pierre-le-Vif of Sens, St-Julien of Tours. Italy in its turn entered the orbit of Cluny. O. won over to the reform the Roman monasteries of S. Paolo, S. Lorenzo, S. Agnese, S. Maria on the Aventine. His influence extended also to Naples, Salerno, S. Pietro of Pavia, S. Elia in the Suppentonice valley near Nepi.
It was not always without difficulty that the wandering monk propagated the exact Benedictine observance. Fleury-sur-Loire dared to resist him even with arms. But O. benefited from solid support among the bishops and princes, particularly the royal family of Burgundy, King Rudolph I, the duchess Adelaide, King Louis IV, the counts of Périgord and of Mâconais, the duke Alfred of Aquitaine, the kings of Italy, Hugh and Lothair, Alberic, prince of the Romans.
In March 931, Pope John XI officially confirmed to O. the mission of reformer, granting him, by means of an annual income of 10 soldi, the faculty of aggregating monasteries to Cluny and of receiving temporarily the monks attracted to his reform. The same bull sanctioned Cluniac independence, withdrew it from all lay and ecclesiastical authority, except that of the Holy See, as the charter of donation of William the Pious (910) had already established. The Pope thus laid the foundations of the Congregation of Cluny, centralizing in the feudal manner a group of monasteries without the protection and domination of a mother abbey (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 3584; PL 132, 1055; privilege renewed by Leo VII, Jaffé-Wattenbach, 3605; PL 132, 1074).
Although they are of later composition, the Cluniac Statutes (Ordo Cluniacensis) bear the influence of O., in particular the traditions of hospitality and charity, the discretion in the exercises of penance and the predominant part accorded to the liturgy.
A mediator and counselor much heeded by popes and by the great, O. re-established on several occasions the peace between Alberic, master of Rome, and Hugh, king of Italy (936, 938-39). In the course of a similar mission to Rome, in the summer of 942, he was seized by malaria. But he still had sufficient strength to reach the monastery of St-Julien of Tours, where he died within the octave of St. Martin. Archbishop Theotolo buried him in the crypt of the monastery. A solemn translation took place in 1407 through the work of Jean de Bernard, archbishop of Tours. As for the relics, it is supposed that they were removed, at least in part, from the vandalism of the Reformers and deposited in the collegiate church of l'Isle-Jourdain (Gers). The sanctity of the abbot is attested in a Roman council by Gregory VII. Feast on 19 Nov., in the Order of St. Benedict on 29 Apr.
O.'s literary work is quite considerable. A moralist, he left, besides some sermons, a compendium from the Moralia in Iob of St. Gregory the Great, an impersonal work. The Collationum libri tres offer more interest; the author set down in writing and developed the discussions he had with Turpio of Limoges, when, as a candidate for the priesthood (908-909), he confided to him his apprehensions before his future responsibilities. The picture that he traces of the era is rather gloomy. Of the same inspiration is the Occupatio, a vast poem of 7 books and 7000 hexameters. It is composed of moral considerations on some salient fact of sacred history. One notes in it allegorical exegesis. The historical work, inspired by hagiographic concerns, comprises a life of St. Gerald, count of Aurillac, founder of the abbey of that place, and a brief biography of St. Martin of Tours. A liturgist and reputed musician, O. is finally the author of hymns and of several antiphons in honor of St. Martin. Of the musical treatises attributed to him, modern criticism has recognized only a brief fragment, the tonora per ordinem. - See plate IV.
Bibliography7 works
3. - ENCICLOFEDIA CATTOLICA. - IX.
Acta Sanct. O. S. B., V, pp. 150-86; PL 133, 43-86; Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, pp. 13-56; Neues Archiv, 15 (1890), pp. 117-26. The monk Nalgod, in the 12th cent., reworked and condensed the Vita of John of Salerno, leaving a text more orderly, more correct and enriched with chronologies; ed.: Mabillon, loc. cit., pp. 186-199; PL loc. cit., 85-104. Cf. BHL, 6202-99. Literature: E. Sackur, Die Cluniacenser, I, Halle 1892-94, pp. 36-120; II, pp. 330-38; Dom Du Bourg, St-Odon, Paris 1905, literary and popular, cf. Anal. Balland., 24 (1905), pp. 408-409; L. Kolner, Odo, der erste Cluniacensermagister, Deggendorf 1913; A. Fliche, La réforme grégorienne, I, Louvain 1924, pp. 30-47; A. M. Zimmermann, Kalendarium Benedictinum, III, Metten 1937, pp. 324-27; Fliche-Martin, Hist. de l'Eglise, VII, Paris 1940, pp. 322-24; E. Ammann, s. v. in DThC, XI, coll. 937-39; G. Antonelli, L'opera di O. di Cluny in Italia, in Benedictina, 4 (1950), pp. 19-40; cf. also the bibliography of the entry CLUNY.
Clemente Schmitt