Back to the Library
The Medieval Church · c. 930
The Life of Gerald of Aurillac
Odo of Cluny · c. 878–942
Read elsewhere
What it is
The life of a layman and landholder presented as a saint — a lord who fought with the flat of his sword, refused to despoil the poor, and never married.
Why it lasted
The first attempt to show that a fighting nobleman could be holy without becoming a monk, and an early root of the idea of Christian knighthood.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
Read next