Moody, Ernest A. The Logic of William Ockham. London: Sheed and Ward, 1935.
ODILO
(961–1049). One of the long-lived abbots of Cluny who helped establish the monastery’s
authority and prestige (r. 994–1049), Odilo was from a noble family of Auvergne, son of
a couple named Berald and Gerberge. Odilo’s brother Berald became provost of Le Puy.
Odilo himself had been a canon at Brioude, in Auvergne, before coming to Cluny. As
prior of Cluny, he governed the house during the final years of his predecessor, Maiolus.
In the final years of Odilo’s own life, his prior and eventual successor, Hugues, similarly
governed for him.
Under Odilo, Cluny reformed a number of monasteries to a regular life, especially in
Burgundy. Some, like Paray-le-Monial, became Cluniac priories; others, like
SaintGermain of Auxerre and Saint-Bénigne of Dijon, retained their own abbots while
following Cluniac customs.
Constance B.Bouchard
[See also: CLUNIAC ORDER; ODO]
Jotsaldus. Vita Odilonis. PL 142.897–940.
Bouchard, Constance B. Sword, Miter, and Cloister: Nobility and the Church in Burgundy, 980–
- Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.
Hourlier, Jacques. Saint Odilon, abbé de Cluny. Louvain: Bibliothèque de l’Université, 1964.
Rosenwein, Barbara H. To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s
Property, 909–1049. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989.
ODO
(d. 944). Cluny first became an important monastic center under Abbot Odo (r. 926–44),
who was from an aristocratic family, probably of the region of Berry. In his youth, he had
served in the household of Duke William I the Pious of Aquitaine, Cluny’s founder,
before becoming a monk at Saint-Martin of Tours. Later, he moved to the stricter
monastery of Baume, where Berno was abbot, a house founded by disciples of Benedict
of Aniane. Berno also became abbot of four other houses, including Cluny when it was
founded in 909, and upon his death Odo was chosen to succeed him at Cluny. In the 12th
century, the Cluniacs considered Odo rather than Berno their true founder.
As abbot, Odo took over the direction of eleven houses, most located some distance
from Cluny. The most important of these was Romainmoutier, in the trans-Saône
kingdom of Burgundy, but his reforms also included houses in Auvergne and southern
France, in the west (Tours), and even in Italy. Some of these houses were governed again
in later generations by their own abbots, but some stayed under the direction of Cluny’s
abbot. In all cases, the purpose was to restore the monastic life to regularity, by ejecting
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