ON ST. ODO, BISHOP
OF URGEL IN TARRACONENSIAN SPAIN.
1122.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
On his cult, lineage, age, Acts, and miracles.
Odo, Bishop, at Urgel in Tarraconensian Spain (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Urgel or Urgellum, otherwise Orgellum, Henschenius once described in few words on the twenty-eighth of May, treating of Justus, Bishop of that same city, whom here another holy Prelate follows in the same see, by name Odo; Unknown to all the Fasti, he is marked in the Roman Martyrology: who, of what number he was in order, neither the Acts hand down, nor have I been able thus far to draw out from elsewhere. That the Saint was illustrious in his country, and a few years after his death placed on the altars, Domenech proves from a diploma of the year 1133, by which Peter, the successor of St. Odo, in the eleventh year from his happy end, decreed his annual solemnity to be celebrated, as I shall shortly show. Here it is first to be noted that the memory of St. Odo is found in no Fasti of ours at all, not even in the first edition of the Roman Martyrology in our possession, of the year 1586;
but inserted first into the other edition of the year 1608 in these words: At Urgel in Tarraconensian Spain, St. Odo the Bishop: and this, as Baronius confesses in his annotations, not from any ancient or more recent Martyrology, but from the Flos Sanctorum of Spain, so that it seems certain enough that the cult of St. Odo did not cross the Pyrenean mountains until the seventeenth century, then first communicated with the rest of the Catholic Church.
[2] For the rest, concerning the veneration of the Saints paid him long since, sufficient credit is made by the already-mentioned diploma, which I here transcribe: Endowed with a cult long since in his own church. In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1133, the eleventh of the Kalends of July. I, D. Peter, Bishop of the church of Urgel, and the whole assembly of Canons, celebrating the great and illustrious venerable solemnity of the Pontiff Odo of blessed memory, with one mouth all call together that the day of his birthday be yearly canonized and canonically instituted by all and laudably confirmed: so that always hereafter, among the other chief festivities of this year, this without doubt worthily and laudably, as that of the Lord, or of so great a Patron of ours the Pontiff Ermengaud, be observed as venerable with divine mysteries: and in taking the canonical foods too, after the manner of the aforesaid solemnities, both among the greatest and among the boys, be firmly held and had, and venerably honored. As dispenser I give and confirm one cow from my revenue. But if any successor of mine, or anyone, should wish to disturb this, or should come to break it, let him be excommunicated and anathematized on the part of almighty God and of blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and be plunged into hell. And therefore let this charter remain firm and unshaken for all time. But if his feast fall on a Friday, let the clerics be honorably refreshed with great fishes. ✠ Sign of D. Peter, Bishop of the church of Urgel. ✠ Sign of Benedict, Abbot of St. Saturninus. ✠ Sign of Gerald the Archdeacon. ✠ Sign of Berengar the Archdeacon. ✠ Sign of Gemball the Sacristan. ✠ Sign of Peter William the Archdeacon. ✠ Sign of Pontius the Archdeacon. ✠ Sign of Bernard the Prior and Provost. Arnald wrote it, having been asked, and confirmed it with his ✠ Sign. Amen.
[3] This manner of canonizing, altogether solemn, without the elevation of the Saint's body from the earth, The age to be gathered from the Acts, which here at least is not expressed, must have been proper to the Spaniards, certainly to the Catalans, since I have not yet found traces of a rite of this kind among others. To call the instrument into doubt would seem rash; but I do not undertake to inquire about it at length, nor indeed is it worth the trouble to discuss a matter placed in the open: for even if something in the decree were to be carped at, the Saint's festivity does not depend on it, being sufficiently established by ancient immemorial possession and the ecclesiastical office alone. The age of St. Odo, of which the lessons of the aforesaid Office of Urgel have not a word, the Acts in Tamayo, to be exhibited below, define a little more clearly, which however manifestly err in noting Innocent II. Thus it is there read: Finally, after he had ruled the see for the course of twenty-eight years, being called by the Lord whom he had served, he delivered his most holy soul, free from the prison-house of the body, to him to be crowned, on the Nones of July, in the year of the Lord 1121, Innocent II holding the Apostolic See as supreme Pontiff, and Raymond Berengar the third of this name holding the county of Barcelona. Innocent II did not hold the Apostolic See in the aforesaid year 1122, but Calixtus II, created in 1119, dead in 1124; so that either the author of the Legend himself, or at least the copyist, must have erred basely. The epoch of Raymond Berengar agrees well enough, nor do other things occur which greatly deserve censure.
[4] Tamayo inquires into the Saint's progeny, which is known well enough from the Acts themselves: as also the lineage which Tamayo explains. I shall not, however, be reluctant to note here the things which he himself not undiligently suggested. He observes first that the Saint's parent Artal, Count of Pallars, was the son of the Counts of that same city, of the most noble stock of the Counts of Barcelona and of Urgel; and that his mother Luciana (whom others call Lucia) was the sister of Almodis, wife of Raymond Berengar, the second of this name, Count of Barcelona, and Countess of the city of Carcassonne, who was aunt of William, Count of Toulouse, and also of Raymond Berengar, Count of Barcelona the third of this name, as Father Diago proves, History of the Counts of Barcelona book 2, chapter 40, folio 103 and 104, and chapter 73 folio 137. Tamayo then inquires the name of St. Odo's predecessor in the episcopate, and gathers that it was Bernard, showing from the praised Diago that that Bernard, Bishop of Urgel, was alive in the year 1090, when he offered help to Ermengaud, Count of Urgel, in the recovery of the city of Balaguer. But Bernard must have departed this life before the year 1094; for since the Acts affirm that St. Odo ruled the church of Urgel for twenty-eight years, and died in the year 1122, twenty-eight years of his prelacy being subtracted, it seems established that our Saint undertook the government of that church in the year 1094. Let these things be said concerning the lineage of St. Odo and the beginning of his episcopate.
[5] Our chief question ought to turn upon his very Acts, which, since they existed only in Spanish compendia, our Elders used all diligence, The Acts compared with the Lessons of the office. that at least from the proper church of Urgel the necessary monuments might be obtained, which at last in the year 1680 were procured by the help of our Father Jerome Suitman, who sent them to Papebroch; namely the Lessons for St. Odo, Bishop of Urgel, taken from an ancient Breviary of that holy church. They are nine, but very brief, which indeed I had prepared to publish; but when I afterward compared them with the Acts which Tamayo asserts were taken from the manuscript Legendary of that holy church, I observed that these Acts do not differ from the Office in any substantial thing, nay, that some historical series is deduced a little better in them, so that I judged them to be preferred; also for this cause, that the Office, interrupted by its responsories and verses, disturbs the history, nor reports anything worthy which is not more neatly and fittingly expressed in the life or in the Saint's epitaph. For what do these signify: Let us rejoice on the solemn light, on the perennial light; because the passing of the holy Prelate is wholly celebrated? What that: The shore of Pallars proclaims Odo at all hours? What finally, and other things of that kind: On the last day of the month, while the sun thirsts to reach its end: on the supernal throne of the Saints Odo is venerated? Easy is the loss of such things. Further, in all these I proceed with this faith, that I suppose Tamayo rendered the Acts genuine and sincere, not greatly suspect where he keeps his hands from Dexter, Luitprand, Marcus Maximus, and wares of this kind.
[6] The miracles received from the same Tamayo. Of the same Tamayo are some miracles of St. Odo, of which he thus prefaces: Very many miracles God, by the intervention of the holy Pontiff, deigned to work in his life and after his passing, the histories of which, through the antiquity of the times and the carelessness of our men, nearly all perished, except some which diligence saved from the jaws of oblivion, of this kind. The same diligence I trust is here established in preserving the miracles as was in guarding the Legend, of which we have already spoken, so that consequently they can here too be safely reviewed. First therefore we shall give the Acts themselves, then indeed we shall subjoin the miracles in order, on the faith of Tamayo.
LIFE
From the Manuscript Legendary of the church of Urgel.
In Juan Tamayo Salazar, in the Spanish Martyrology.
Odo, Bishop, at Urgel in Tarraconensian Spain (S.)
BHL Number: 6301
FROM A MANUSCRIPT.
The Saint's birth, studies, and warfare. Odo or Otho, the most blessed Bishop of the church of Urgel, sprung from the most noble line of the Counts of Barcelona, and begotten of the most illustrious stock of the Princes of Gascony in Aquitaine, and of Urgel in Catalonia, had for father Artal, Count of Pallars, and for mother Luciana, a most illustrious woman. This stock indeed, and this race, the most holy man illustrated by the most excellent exploits of his life, and by the working of wonderful virtues, which he happily performed in the service of God. When therefore Odo had come to the age of adolescence, and had shown the felicity of his genius, his father the Count delivered the boy to masters famous for doctrine, from whom he might learn the sciences, which he so perennially attained that he became the most learned among the doctors of his age, so that he easily showed what he would afterward profit: for the candor of his life, and the excellence of his virtues, was eminent among his fellow-disciples, as the moon among the lesser fires. Hence, girt with the manly toga, he disposed to follow the ranks of warfare (as those times bore), and, that he might beat down the forces of injustice, and defend the laws of equity, which in his father's dominion, by the confusion of wars and the abomination of the times, were seen to be overthrown, and protect them by manly daring. This at any rate was the more violent cause by which the holy Man, being consulted, took up arms, especially the malice of the nobles being known, who not only were zealous to persecute the churches in his father's county, so that they plundered the ecclesiastical possessions; but also their children, namely the poor, whom by a foul incursion they stubbornly oppressed.
[2] After this it came about that the Bishop who at that time governed the church of Urgel, Promoted to the chair of Urgel, pressed down by a most grave infirmity, beholding the peril of his life, commanding the Clergy and people to be summoned to his sight, and, they being present, disclosed how he had obtained that church and episcopate against the order of law and the rules of the sacred canons; then, dismissing the priestly ministry, the fillets of the episcopate, the pontifical name and honor, he left all his goods to the church, with true contrition of penance, and fulfilled his life. He being dead, the Counts of Pallars and of Urgel, with the clergy and people, being gathered for the election of a new Prelate, desired with all their might to elect such a man as the straitness of the times, the necessity of the churches, and the indigence of the poor demanded. Who, after they had made a rigid scrutiny of the life and manners of some priests, meditating on the famous nature of Odo, and reviewing his notable deeds, and also admiring his humanity, full of meekness, and his noble spirit, together with the heaps of his doctrine and the pile of his laudable and pious manners, and finally, that, the belt of secular warfare being left, he had put on the habit of the heavenly, and acted as Archdeacon of the church of Urgel, by the votes of all the most blessed Odo was elected Bishop of that See.
[3] He therefore governing the reins of the prelacy of this kind, straightway restored the ecclesiastical rights, according to the sanctions of the sacred canons, with the whole effort of his heart. he applies himself to reforming his diocese. The insolences of wicked men retaining the possessions of the churches, seized by force, he bridled, and to the restitution of them compelled them by the ecclesiastical sword of excommunication. Then the injuries of the poor inflicted by the more powerful he redeemed with burning solicitude. The depraved manners of the people, contracted by the ulcer of wars, and introduced by the license of soldiers, he corrected by rigorous animadversion. The vices of the Clergy, more basely emanated by the indulgence of his predecessor, he extinguished by the torch of correction, and cut away with the sickle of austerity. So the people, thus far foul with the multitude of crimes, stained with the multitude of offenses, and oppressed with the burden of sins, he brought back to the worship of the true God, and to the working of notable exploits; so that, while he lived, the whole diocese was thought to be the true offspring of Christ.
Nor was the blessed Man wanting to himself in these most holy exercises; The virtues exercised in the prelacy; his death and burial. for he so composed the actions of soul and body that he did not seem to fail in deed in that which he decreed to reprehend in others by word. He was continuous in prayer, and subject to mortification: to the hungry he afforded salubrious pastures by bread and by discourse: all that was his own he continually bestowed by the balance of justice; so that he neither desired what was another's, nor as a miser retained his own: but, liberal of hand, he dispensed his own with most modest discretion, and did not pour it out by prodigal dispersion. Finally, after he had ruled the see for the course of twenty-eight years, being called by the Lord whom he had served, he delivered his most holy soul, free from the prison-house of the body, to him to be crowned, on the Nones of July in the year of the Lord 1122, Innocent II holding the Apostolic See as supreme Pontiff, and Raymond Berengar the third of this name holding the county of Barcelona. His death without doubt so moved the hearts of the men of the whole region that all grieved without solace for the lost Pastor. At last, his body being entombed in the basilica of Urgel, devotion appended this decastich to his sarcophagus:
In this shrine lies the holy body of the fostering Odo; The Epitaph. who was Prelate of Urgel and the honor of the city. Conspicuous in blood, of the illustrious stock of the Barons, whose progeny he adorned, rejoicing. Him the Church everywhere calls its protector, intrepid, because he cherishes her rights. He was famous in genius, nay likewise notable in manners, a cultivator of religion. A father to orphans, and often a husband too to widows, health to the sick, and food to the poor.
MIRACLES.
Odo, Bishop, at Urgel in Tarraconensian Spain (S.)
BHL Number: 6302
FROM A MANUSCRIPT.
A mute man receives a tongue and speech. A certain mute young man, born of a town of Pallars, who from birth had been born without a tongue, when he had prayed through the night at the sepulcher of the holy Prelate, obtained a tongue indeed, but without use. Returned to his country, when his friends and kinsmen wondered how he had received a tongue, which he lacked, by the intervention of the man of God, but without speech: again they urge the young man to go to the sepulcher, and to pray with faith until he receive speech; asserting that God, who had created the tongue out of nothing, would also, being merciful, impart a voice. The young man, having set out again to Urgel, coming to the Lake of Aquilinus, found St. Odo splendid in face, clad in the pontifical fillet, whom, as the young man beheld, astonished he fell to the earth. But the holy Man saluted the young man kindly, who by common signs signified how he was mute. To whom the holy Prelate said: Speak. He spoke; then Odo disappeared, the young man came whole to Urgel, went to the sepulcher, gave thanks, related the history, and returned to his own home.
[2] Another mute man obtains a voice. A certain Sardinian knight, a most familiar friend of St. Odo while he lived, with humbled heart after the Saint's death came with a mute servant to his sepulcher; who, on bended knees, said: My father, and most holy Odo, as often as I came to your court, I received from your hand liberally singular gifts; now I humbly beg of thee, if, as I believe, thou holdest the heights of heaven, that thou restore speech to this my servant, to the honor of God, thy glory, and the praise of all the Saints. The same prayer the mute servant repeated, until, weary, he fell into a deep sleep, in which he seemed to himself to see two most honorable men, comely in face, who followed a certain virgin, splendid in beauty and beautiful in splendor, coming to the sepulcher of St. Odo. Who, placed before the sarcophagus, and lovingly beholding the mute man, said to one of the companions: Son, this young man needs a remedy: to whom the venerable companion answered: Lady, command our brother and thy servant Odo the Bishop, that he impart it. Then the beautiful virgin, looking at Odo, said: Son, this mute man, who sleeps at thy sepulcher, implores thy help; why dost thou not apply healing to him? Then the holy Prelate, obeying, coming to the sleeping mute man, touched his tongue with the thumb of his right hand, and restored to him speech. Then the young man, roused from sleep, expressed the vision, and all, praising God together, confessed the glory of the holy Prelate.
[3] A certain paralytic, having heard the fame of St. Odo's miracles, A paralytic is cured. asked his father to carry him to the sepulcher of the holy Prelate; who, being carried, when he had spent very many days there and received no healing, with the whole effort of his heart poured out suppliant prayers to God, by the intervention of the holy Man. The father, worn out by the long continuance of the cure, abandoned his paralytic son, and withdrew to his own home. O miracle! Scarcely had the father departed from the church, when the son received health, and, thanks being given to God and to Odo, first entered his own house.
[4] Another young man, a Gaul by nation, laboring with a like paralysis, came to the sepulcher of St. Odo, compelled by the fame of the prodigies wrought there, Likewise another; who, although for several continuous days and nights, in order to obtain health, he clung to the sarcophagus of the holy Prelate, never obtained health. Therefore, set upon a little ass, he left the church mourning. But when, thirsty, he had come to the fountain of Plovinum, he descended from the ass to draw water and drink; but the ass, empty of the burden of its weight, straightway began to flee through the field. The paralytic, beholding his misery, again poured out prayers to God, by the intervention of St. Odo, and forthwith came out whole, so that he caught the ass, and, in thanksgiving, returned to the see of Urgel bathed in a shower of tears.
[5] and a third. Another young man also, an inhabitant of the town of Castellpont, when on the night of St. John the Baptist he feigned a paralytic for the sake of mockery, by the permission of God remained dislocated, without any refuge of medicine. But, drawn to the sepulcher of St. Odo, although for many seasons he passed the night there, he remained in the weakness of his limbs. Seeing this, those who had brought the young man thither resolved to lead him to his own home. But meanwhile that man saw St. Odo with two companions, clad in most white cloaks, one of whom, the holy Man commanding, threw the young man on the ground. Whom, when those present saw supine and crying out, they cried to him to raise himself, and asked the cause of his fall. To whom he made known all that he had seen and that had happened; and added how he believed he would receive health, namely if the prayers of the clerics were present; who, straightway aiding the young man by the recitation of the Psalms, when they came to the verse, There is no health in my flesh, nor is there peace to my bones, straightway the paralytic came out free, and, thanks being given, withdrew to his own home.