Editing Oda of Canterbury (section)

==Bishop of Ramsbury==

Oda was consecrated Bishop of Ramsbury sometime between 909 and 927,<ref name=Handbook220>Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 220</ref> not to Wilton as stated by both William of Malmesbury and the ''Life''. The appointment was most likely made by King [[Athelstan of England|Æthelstan]], and the first securely attested mention in documents of the new bishop occurs in 928, when he is a witness to royal charters as bishop.<ref name=DNB/> According to the late tenth-century chronicler, [[Richerus|Richer of Rheims]], in 936 Æthelstan sent Oda to France to arrange the return to the throne of France of King [[Louis IV of France|Louis IV]].<ref name=ASE347/><ref name=Foot169>Foot ''Æthelstan'' p. 169</ref>{{efn|Bishops and archbishops in the medieval period were involved in secular government as well as their ecclesiastical duties.<ref name=Southern173>Southern ''Western Society and the Church'' pp. 173–174</ref>}} Louis was Æthelstan's nephew<ref name=BASE159/> and had been in exile in England for a number of years.<ref name=ASE347>Stenton ''Anglo-Saxon England'' p. 347</ref> However, this story is not related in any contemporary records.<ref name=DNB/> Oda was said to have accompanied King Æthelstan at the [[Battle of Brunanburh]] in 937.<ref name=ASE/><ref name=DictSaint>Delaney ''Dictionary of Saints'' p. 464</ref> It was at this battle that Oda is said to have miraculously provided a sword to the king when the king's own sword slipped out of its scabbard. A Ramsey chronicle records that in the 1170s, the sword was still preserved in the royal treasury, although the chronicler carefully states the story "as is said" rather than as fact.<ref name=Clanchy40>Clanchy ''From Memory to Written Record'' p. 40</ref> There are no contemporary records of Oda's appearance at the battle.<ref name=DNB/> In 940, Oda arranged a truce between [[Olaf III Guthfrithson]], king of Dublin and York, and [[Edmund I]], king of England.<ref name=DNB/>{{efn|Olaf, already king of Dublin, had seized control of Northumbria and York from Edmund shortly after Edmund's coronation as king in 939. This truce set the boundary between the two kings' realms at [[Watling Street]].<ref name=BASE159>Miller "Edmund" ''Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England'' pp. 159–160</ref>}}