Odo of Cluny () ( – 18 November 942) was the second abbot of Cluny.

Born to a noble family, he served as a page at the court of Aquitaine. He became a canon of the Church of St. Martin in Tours and continued his education in Paris under Remigius of Auxerre. Upon returning to Tours, Odo became disillusioned with the life of a canon and subsequently entered the Benedictine abbey at Baume, where he became superior of the abbey school.

Odo joined Abbot Berno at Cluny and, when Berno died in 927, was elected his successor. While abbot, he also managed the priory at Romainmôtier. Next, he undertook the reform of Fleury Abbey. He encouraged the monks to adhere more closely to the original Rule of Saint Benedict. In 931, the Pope authorized Odo to continue his work in the monasteries of Aquitaine. He enacted the various Cluniac Reforms of France and Italy. In 937, he went to Rome and was given the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. He also sent his aides to Monte Cassino and Subiaco.

Odo initiated the practice among the monasteries following Cluny to hold an annual commemoration of all the faithful departed on the day after All Saints' Day.

While yet a child, Odo was sent first to the court of Fulk the Good, Count of Anjou; later, he became a page at the court of William the Pious, duke of Aquitaine, where he spent several years. Odo developed a particular devotion to Mary, under the title "Mother of Mercy", an invocation by which he would address her throughout his life.

Church of St Martin, Tours

In the 9th and 10th centuries, the tomb of St Martin of Tours was considered one of the holiest sites in Western Christendom. At age 19, Odo was tonsured as a canon of the Church of St. Martin in Tours, where he spent six years studying classic authors, the Fathers of the Church, poetry, and music. Odo would later say that the monks of the monastery of St. Martin of Tours had been spoiled by all the wealth and gifts brought by the pilgrims and had abandoned the Rule they were required to follow. He would later tell his monks that the religious at Tours no longer attended nightly Lauds for fear of getting their fine shoes dirty. Upon his return to Tours, Odo adopted a disciplined and ascetic lifestyle. One day, in reading the rule of Saint Benedict, he was confounded to see how much his life fell short of the maxims there laid down, and he determined to embrace a monastic state. The count of Anjou, his patron, refused to consent, and Odo spent almost three years in a cell, with one companion, in the practice of penance and contemplation. At length, he resolved that no impediments should any longer hinder him from consecrating himself to God in the monastic state. He resigned his canonry and secretly repaired to the monastery of Beaume, in the diocese of Besançon, where the Abbot Berno admitted him to the habit. He brought only his books, about a hundred volumes.

The Monastery at Baume

Around 909, Odo entered Baume,

Bishop Turpio of Limoges ordained Odo to the priesthood, which Odo was obliged to accept under obedience. However, Odo was so depressed by this that Berno sent him back to the bishop to visit. Odo and the bishop talked about the church's evil condition and the abuses occurring. Odo spoke about the book of Jeremiah, and the bishop was so impressed by his words that he asked Odo to write it down. Odo said he could not do so without first getting permission from Berno, and the bishop then got Berno's permission, and Odo then wrote down his second book, the Collationes. The charity of Cluny was well-known. In one year, food was distributed to more than seven thousand persons in need.

Reforms of other monasteries

After Berno's death, the first monasteries that Odo reformed were at Romainmoutier, St. Michael's Abbey at Tulle, and the Abbey of Saint-Géraud at Aurillac. He encouraged them to return to the original pattern of the Benedictine rule of prayer, manual labor, and community life under the direction of a spiritual father. It was his usual saying that no one can be called a monk who is not a true lover and a strict observer of silence, a condition necessary for interior solitude and the commerce of a soul with God. "[T]he energetic yet at the same time lovable medieval abbot, enthusiastic about reform, with incisive action nourished in his monks, as well as in the lay faithful of his time..." and twelve choral antiphons in honour of Saint Martin of Tours. Some scholars have attributed the Musica enchiriadis to him.

A story holds that once Odo was writing a glossary of the life of St Martin, written by Postumianus and Gallus. The book, however, was left in a cellar that flooded during a rainstorm. A torrent covered the place where the book lay, but the next day, when the monks came down to the cellar, they found that only the margin of the book was soaked through, but all of the writing was untouched. Odo then told the monks, "Why do ye marvel, oh brothers? Know ye not that the water feared to touch the life of the saint?" Then a monk replied, "But see, the book is old and moth-eaten, and has so often been soaked that it is dirty and faint! Can our father then persuade us that the rain feared to touch a book which in the past has been soaked through? Nay, there is another reason." Odo then realized that they were suggesting it was preserved because he had written a glossary in it, but he then quickly gave the glory to God and St Martin.

  • 29 April or 11 May – commemoration of four abbots of Cluny (Odo, Maiolus, Odilo(n), Hugh).

See also

  • Hugh of Anzy le Duc early reforming abbot
  • Cluniac reforms

References

  • Odo of Cluny at Patron Saints Index
  • Schoolmasters of the Tenth Century. Cora E.Lutz. Archon Books, 1977.
  • The Life of Saint Gerald of Aurillac by Odo of Cluny, trans. Gerald Sitwell, O.S.B. (Google Books)
  • "At the Wellspring of Joy: Saint Odo of Cluny", Silverstream Priory