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.

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.

[2] The work for which Odo is best known, however, was a collection of moralized fables and anecdotes, sometimes titled Parabolæ from the opening words of the prologue (Aperiam in parabolis os meum), which was evidently designed for preachers.

Though partly composed of commonly known adaptations and extracts, it shows originality of interpretation and the moralisations are full of pungent denunciations of the prevalent vices of clergy and laity.

Again, the information that the eagle trains its chicks to gaze at the sun, throwing out of the nest any who cannot manage this, is made the occasion for an exhortation to aspire to heavenly contemplation (Fable 17).

It has also been observed that, in contrast to Marie de France's interest in hierarchic relations in her Ysopet, which privileges the 'noble' animals, there is a broader range of the humbler domestic creatures in Odo.