Orderic Vitalis (abt. 1075 - abt. 1143)

Born about 1075 in Shropshire, England

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Biography

Orderic Vitalis is Notable.

Orderic Vitalis wrote the Historia ecclesiastica which is a reliable major source of contemporary historical information. ^[1]

Birth

He was born in 1075.^[1]

Parents

He was the son of Odelerius of Orleans (c. 1034-1103), a priest who's early life is little known but who made his way to post-Conquest Shrewsbury and entered the service of Earl Roger de Montgomerie. Odelerius was, in turn, the son of Constantius. ^[1]

Odelerius appears in three places in his son Orderic Vitalis' Historia ecclesiastica. ^[1]

• Book IV (composed in 1125) when Orderic, 4then aged fifty, briefly mentions Odelerius as one of the three clerks of Earl Roger in Shropshire, but without identifying him as his father.
• Book V, where he records the gifts of his father's employer, Earl Roger of Montgomery.
• Book VIII, an autobiographical epilogue written at the end of Orderic's life in the autumn of 1141 when Orderic was 67.

Odelerius had a sexual relationship ("perhaps a marriage") with an unknown English woman. Odelerius had three sons, of whom Orderic was the eldest.^[1]

In 1082, Odelerius visited Rome and in 1083 he persuaded Earl Roger to build a monastery in Shrewsbury on the site of St. Peter. Odelerius himself would be a monk there, along with his second son Benedict; his third son Everard would be a tenant. His eldest son he sent first to St. Peter's in Shrewsbury when he was five, and then five years later to St. Evrouls in Normandy. Odelerius' motivation is widely believed to be penance. ^[1]

Birth

Orderic was born at Atcham, near Shrewsbury, in 1075 and baptized there by the priest Orderic. ^[1]

Siblings

The second son, Benedict, was baptized in 1078, and the tird, Everard, a couple of years later. ^[1]

In 1080, at the age of five, Orderic was sent to Shrewsbury to live with a priest, the noble Siward. ^[1]

1085 St. Evrouls

In 1085, Odelerius sent his oldest son, Orderic to become an oblate at Saint Evroul in Normandy. Orderic never saw his father again. ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9} Elisabeth van Houts. "Orderic and his Father, Odelerius" in Orderic Vitalis: Life, Works and Interpretations. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016, pages 17-30. Accessed December 3, 0218 jhd