Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/93

ST. ODO himself, and continues "my Lord the King dictating, I have written it throughout with my own hand." The body of this interesting document is in Latin, and the lands granted are written in the Anglo-Saxon tongue: it is witnessed by King Edred; his mother, Ediva, "with a mind rejoicing in Christ"; Odo the Archbishop; Alphage the Bishop of Winchester (afterwards to be murdered by the Danes when Archbishop); Athelgar, Presul of the Church of Crediton; and many others.

Edred, like Athelstan and his brother Edmund, owed his early training in the Christian religion to his saintly mother, and in later life to Dunstan, who when the King died at Frome in Somersetshire after a brief reign of nine years buried him in the old cathedral church of Winchester.

To return to the history of Odo, whom we left at the court of Edward the Elder; Ethelhelm finding that he (Odo) was a lad of promising parts, sent him to school where he profited exceedingly, excelling in Latin and Greek (Edmer), which was taught in great perfection by successive scholars of Archbishop Theodore's school. Arriving at man's estate he was baptized, and soon after took deacon's orders, and in due course was ordained to the priesthood.

According to the chroniclers, both when he was a layman, and also after he had taken Holy Orders, Odo served in the wars and greatly distinguished himself. After he had been ordained to the priesthood he accompanied Ethelhelm to Rome, on the journey his friend fell sick of a fever but he recovered by drinking a cup of wine over which Odo had in blessing made the sign of the Cross. In A.D. 927 he was nominated by King Athelstan as Bishop of Ramsbury in Wilts, being consecrated by Archbishop Wulfhelm. This see was later moved to Sherborne and afterwards to Salisbury. In A.D. 942, Athelstan being dead, Edmund, upon the death of Archbishop Wulfhelm, translated him to Canterbury. Before accepting this exalted position, Odo realizing his secular condition and feeling that no one but a professed monk should occupy the Chair of St. Austin, determined to be professed according to the Benedictine Rule. It appears that though St. Wilfrid and Benedict Biscop had introduced a reformation of the Rule into England, at this time there was not a single Religious House in England 55