Isabelle Rosé . Construire une société seigneuriale: Itinéraire et ecclésiologie de l'abbé Odon de Cluny (fin du IXe‐milieu du Xesiècle).(Collection d'études médiévales de Nice, number 8.)Turnhout, Belgium : Brepols , with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre d'études Préhistoire, Antiquité, Moyen âge. 2008 . Pp. 732. €55.00.
Constance B. Bouchard
Odo, although the second rather than first abbot of monastery Cluny (founded 909–910), played a major role in shaping what would become one medieval Europe's most influential monastic houses. For long time Odo was considered interesting chiefly because he wrote hagiographic “life” lay lord (Gerald Aurillac), but more recently has been seen as playing key very foundation well its subsequent development, especially reformer other monasteries. Here Isabelle Rosé provides detailed biography (or biographical itinerary, she terms it) Odo; an appendix gives year-by-year account his activities, with citations. She finds it necessary to justify such biography, form is often outdated, even artificial, by French scholars. The itinerary followed book's part close study Odo's thinking on ecclesiology and cosmology, monks properly organized society.
The American Historical Review