Oda the Good

Lately the name Oda has come up as the Archbishop of Canterbury during the time of Dunstan, Æthelwold, and Oswald. 

According to Oswald's biographer, Byrhferth of Ramsey (writing years later), Oda's father was a Dane who arrived in 865 with a Viking army and settled in East Anglia. Byrhtferth writes that Oda was a member of a nobleman's household, and accompanied the man on a pilgrimage to Rome, during which Oda cured the man's illness. We don't know his date of birth, but he was old enough to become Bishop of Ramsbury by 928. 

William of Malmesbury (c.1095 - c.1143) tells a different story, about Oda as a soldier under the Saxon king Edward the Elder and becoming a priest later. Biographers erroneously call him Bishop of Wilton, but evidence doesn't exist for that appointment.

It was likely King Æthelstan who appointed Oda Bishop of Ramsbury, and made him a royal advisor. Oda's name is on a lot of royal charters as witness. Another historian, Richer of Rheims, tells us that Æthelstan sent Oda to France to help King Louis IV (whose queen was Æthelstan's granddaughter through Edward the Elder) to return to the throne. (This story has no contemporary evidence.) Oda was also said to be with Æthelstan at the Battle of Brunanburh, but there is no contemporary evidence of this. These later accounts that ascribe so much to his life tell you that there was a desire to increase his standing because he was considered important to history.

What did happen for certain is that he was made Archbishop of Canterbury after the death of Wulfhelm in 941. In either 945 or 946, at Easter, new law codes were proclaimed by King Edmund that included new ecclesiastical laws developed by Oda and Edmund. Oda also established his own set of rules for clergy, in a work called Constitutions. In it, he dropped any references to dealing with pagans.

As archbishop he supported Dunstan's monastic reforms, and would have been helpful to Oswald, who was Oda's nephew and became Archbishop of York.

Other actions by Oda: renovating Canterbury Cathedral by raising the walls and installing a new roof, building several churches, translating the relics of St. Wilfrid. He also acquired relics of 7th-century Frankish bishop St. Ouen. He was nicknamed both "the Good" and also "the Severe."

He is venerated in both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches with a feast day on 4 July. That's him in the illustration holding a chalice.

Let's make a change away from religious figures for a bit and take a look at the invasion that brought Oda's father to England, the Viking army of Ubba and Ivar. See you tomorrow.

Oswald of Worcester

We now come to Oswald of Worcester who, along with the recently explored Æthelwold and Dunstan, was considered one of the "Three English Holy Hierarchs."

Oswald was actually Danish, and a nephew of Archbishop of Canterbury Oda (mentioned during the clash between Dunstan and Eadwig). Oswald was taught by the Frankish scholar Frithegod, a clergyman who served Oda, then was sent to an abbey at Fleury in France to become a monk. Oda called Oswald back to England, but died (2 June 958) before Oswald arrived.

Oswald looked for a mentor, and found it in the Archbishop of York, Oskytel. Oswald worked at York until he was made Bishop of Worcester in 961, succeeding Dunstan. One of his acts as bishop was to invite to England a monk he knew at Fleury, Germanus of Winchester. He wanted Germanus to be prior of a new monastic community at Westbury-on-Trym.

The continent had experienced a revival of Benedictine Rule that was much more strict than what was going on in England's monasteries. Oswald (along with the efforts of Æthelwold and Dunstan) wanted to bring that stricter lifestyle to the island. He also wanted to expunge the secularism he saw in the English Church, where indulgences were sold and positions were given to lay people for the monetary advantage instead of to clergy.

There were married clergy at the time, and one tradition states that Oswald expelled any priests who would not give up their wives and replaced them with monks. An alternate story is that he established monasteries near the cathedrals, allowing the secular priests to maintain their duties until he had enough properly trained monks to take over the cathedral duties, pushing out the priests.

He founded Ramsey Abbey, and in 985 invited Abbo of Fleury to run its school. Abbo taught computus, the method used to calculate the dates of Easter.

Oswald was named Archbishop of York in 972 but stayed Bishop of Worcester, an unusual arrangement that applied to the Archbishops of York for the next 50 years. It aided York financially to have a very wealthy diocese added to its holdings.

Oswald's daily custom during Lent was to wash the feet of the poor. On 29 February 992, while doing so at Worcester, he died. He was buried at the Church of St. Mary at Worcester. Miracles were reported at his funeral and tomb. Ten years later, his remains were translated to a spot at Worcester Cathedral. 

The man who started him on his rise to fame, Archbishop Oda, has been named a few times in recent days, and we'll see what else he did, tomorrow.

The Life of Asser

Most of what we know about King Alfred the Great comes from a single manuscript copy from the Cotton Library, Vita Ælfredi regis Angul Saxonum (Latin: "The Life of Alfred, King of the Anglo-Saxons"). We know it was begun in 893 because Asser mentions how old Alfred was at the time of writing (Alfred died six years later).

John Asser was a Welsh monk at St. David's in Dyfed (southwest Wales). We know little about him until he was recruited by Alfred to join his court for his scholarly abilities.

In the biography, we learn that Alfred decided on St. Martin's Day in 887 (November 11) that he wanted to learn Latin, and asked Asser to be his teacher. Asser asked for six months to consider, since he did not want to leave his position at St. David's. This was granted, but Asser fell ill when he returned to St. David's, and a year later Alfred to ask why the delay. Asser said he would decide when he recovered. The monks at St. David's felt the arrangement could be beneficial to them, and Asser agreed to divide his time between the two obligations.

Asser mentions reading to Alfred in the evenings, meeting Alfred's mother-in-law, and traveling with him. He describes the geography of his travels in England, as if he were writing for an audience unfamiliar with the English countryside: possible for his Welsh countrymen, whose he wished to educate about the king. He also includes some anecdotes that help flesh out information otherwise found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

The biography does not mention any events after 893, although Alfred lived another six years (and Asser well beyond that). That fact, and the fact that there is a single manuscript, suggests that what we have is merely an early draft that never was finished and sent to be copied and distributed. On the other hand, there are other literary works that show evidence of access to Asser's manuscript. A history written by Byrhtferth of Ramsey in the late 10th century quotes large sections of Asser. An anonymous monk in Flanders seems acquainted with Asser's work in his 1040s-written Encomium Emma (Latin: "Praise of [Queen] Emma"). In the early 12th century, Florence of Worcester quotes Asser in his chronicle. It seems clear that Asser's manuscript either "made the rounds" or lived in a much-visited library; we just don't know where it was in its earliest existence.

We do know that Bishop Matthew Parker (died 1575) possessed it in his library, but it was not included in the catalog when he bequeathed his library to Corpus Christi, Cambridge. Prior to that, it was owned by the antiquary John Leland in the 1540s. He might have acquired it when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, salvaging it when their properties and possessions were being sold off.

I seem to have turned a life of Asser into a discussion of his one known piece off writing.

As a reward, and possibly to keep Asser from going back to Wales, Alfred gave him the monastery of Exeter. He was made Bishop of Sherborne sometime between 892 and 900. He may have been a bishop already, at St. David's.

In 1603, the antiquarian William Camden printed an edition of Asser's Life in which he ascribes to Asser the founding of a college at Oxford. This extraordinary and evidence-free claim was repeated, but no modern scholar or historian.

The Annals of Wales (probably kept at St. David's) mention Asser's death in 908. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for 909 (or 910, in some versions; different chroniclers started the year at different dates) tells us "Asser, who was bishop at Sherborne, departed."

And now for something completely different: one of the anecdotes he tells is about a daughter of King Offa, who married a king of Wessex and became a stereotype of Disney films: an evil queen. Tomorrow I'll tell you about Eadburh.