Odo of Cheriton

Odo of Cheriton 1180/1190 – 1246/47) was an English preacher and fabulist who spent a considerable time studying in Paris and then lecturing in the south of France and in northern Spain.

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. His father William had been a crusader with Richard Coeur de Lion and then added to the family’s fortunes as a supporter of King John. His son Odo studied at the University of Paris, 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, 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. After it closed, he moved to the University of Salamanca. 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, 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 and his brother Waleran inherited his lands.

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 (Sermones de Festis). His final religious work, written about 1235, after his return to England, was a handbook for priests on penitence.

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