163 OSYTH, ST.

OTHO

on a hunting expedition seized the opportunityof obtaining the veil from two East Anglianbishops, Ecca and Bedwin. Sighere not onlyconsented to her act but bestowed upon her anestate at Chich, where she built a nunnery, overwhich she became abbess. If such was the fact,this was the earliest monastery in Essex. In653 a crew of piratical Danes, out of EastAnglia, which those pagans had devastated,landed at Chich, beheaded Osyth, and sacked theplace. She was interred at Aylesbury, in thevicinity of which her parents resided, but even-tually Maurice, bishop of London, had her relicsconveyed to Chich. The Vita is burdened withprodigies. While under Editha’s charge Osythwas blown off a bridge in crossing a river, andafter being submerged three days rose out fromthe water alive and well, as Editha and Mod-wenna were calling to her. After decapita-tion she carried her own head in her handsthree stadia to the door of the neighbouringchurch of SS. Peter and Paul; and on the spotwhere she suffered there sprang up a fountainwith miraculous virtues. As to the persons ofthe story, Milteburga, the daughter of Penda, isotherwise unknown. Frithewald is taken bySuysken to be the Mercian subregulus Frithe-woldus in Florence of Worcester’s Chronicle ,ann. 675 {M. H. B. 535 a), while others makehim the same as Redoald, king of East Anglia.The story labours under incurable anachronisms,defying all Suysken’s art. King Sighere andthe two bishops come some twenty years, Alfredand the Danes above two centuries, before theirtime. Suysken makes this last king the North-umbrian Alfred, fetching him from a long dis-tance, a suggestion which could be tolerated ifthe story went straight in other respects, and ifAlfred, the son of Ethelwulf, with a sister Edith,did not otherwise figure in Lives of Modwenna(cf. Hardy, Cat. i. 98). Streveshal is sus-piciously like Streaneschalh (Whitby), whichalso occurs in Modwenna’s story (Hardy, Cat. i.99). Editha and Pollesworch appear copieslikewise of king Egbert’s daughter Edith andher foundation the Warwickshire Polesworth.As to the final removal of her relics from Ayles-bury to Chich, we must observe that it isdescribed in the Vita not as one of those eccle-siastical functions known as translations, but asa nocturnal and furtive proceeding of a neigh-bouring workman alleging the saint’s commandsgiven in a vision, narrated in a legendarymanner with impossible facts, showing that therewas no authentic burial at Chich of anything atall of Osyth’s, genuine or tingenuine; that thesaint in fact is a name and nothing more, im-posed on the place to create a fictitious sanctitvfor bishop Richard’s monastery. Leland {/tin.vol. viii. pt. 2, fol. 92, Hearne’s, p. 41) gives theheads of a Life of Osyth which he found, bear-ing the name of Vere, a canon of St. Osyth,assigning her martyrdom to the year 600.Suysken, in spite of his author’s own expressdate, places the saint at the close of the seventhcentury; while others, as Butler, put her deathin the great Danish year 870. Petrus Galesiniusallows her a place in his Homan Martyrology ,but Baronius does not admit her into his,although he narrates the martyrdom in hisAnnals (ann. 653 x.). Outlines of the story, inits varieties and in English, may be seen in

o ijjoivc Ksiuaioque [u. s v ,(u. s.) Butler’s Lives of tteMorant s Essex, vol. i. p. 456: Wris-fit’. p ’vol. ii. p. 772. [Modwenna.] nght - s£ «*.

[C.H.]’

OTHMAR (Audemarus, Audomabus Atitmarus, Otmarus), first abbat of St. Gall lacalled also “abbas Durgaugensis,” fro! t h“ pagus Durgaugia,” in which the monasteivstood. Chief authorities are Walafrid Strabo'sVita S. Galli and Vita 8. Othmari (P a t. Lat tcxiv, 1012, sq. 1031, sq.) with Mabillonii Obserivationes Braeeiae from Acta SS. ord. S. Bened. tiv. The Vita S. Othmari is also in Goldastus(Alam. Her. Scrip, i. pt. ii. 277-84), and is saidto have been written at the request of abbatGozbert in the beginning of the 9th century.Goldastus {lb. i. pt. ii. 285, sq. 494, sq.) givesalso two books of his miracles by Iso magister.Like his namesake, St. Audomar or Omer, he wasa native of Alemannia and was presbyter withVictor, count of Chur, when Waltramnus pre-sented him to Pippin, Mayor of the Palace, ormore probably to Charles, his father, about a.d.720. Receiving, with many other gifts, thedecayed monastery of St. Gall, he renewed itsvigour, but incurred the hatred of certain princes,Warm and Ruthard, who accused him of immo-rality before Pippin, then king of France, and hewas driven into exile at a town called Potamum,where the Rhine leaves the Lake of Constance.When taken ill, he was removed by a friend toStein, where still a prisoner, he died in the 7thyear of king Pippin, a.d. 759, and is said to havebeen abbat forty years. His feast is Oct. 1G(Usuard, Mart. Auct.\ and he is sometimescalled bishop and martyr, but properly he wasneither. [J. G.]

OTHO, Roman emperor, A.D. 69. M. SalviusOtho, born a.d. 32, the son of L. Otho, who hadbeen Proconsul of Africa, was conspicuous inearly youth for licentious profligacy, and afterhis father’s death was associated with Nero inhis worst excesses. On the day which the em-peror had fixed for the murder of Agrippina,Otho gave a splendid banquet to both in order todisarm suspicion (Sueton. Otho , c. 2). Theirintimacy was however broken by their rivalry inthe affections of Poppaen, and the jealousy of theemperor led him to assign to Otho the honour-able banishment of a legatio in Lusitania (Tac.Ann. xiii. 45, 46 ; Hist. i. 13) where he governedas quaestor with an unexpected equity and mo-deration (Tac. Hist. i. 13; Sueton. Otho, c. 2).On the death of Nero, and the election of Galb aas his successor by the Praetorian Guards, Othoat first endeavoured to secure the favour of thenew emperor in the hope of being adopted as hissuccessor. Disappointed by Galba’s preferenceof L. Piso, urged on by the pressure of heavydebts, and stimulated by the predictions of t esoothsayers and magi, in whom he imphci ybelieved (Sueton. Otho, c. 4), gathering a band oisoldiers, by whom he was saluted with the ti eof imperator , he led them to the forum to encounter Galba, who was deserted by his troop*and murdered by a common soldier. Otho wawelcomed by the populace in the theatre asanother Nero (Plut. Otho , p. 1007), ana jomethat name to his own in his official le -c(Plut. Ibid.). The night that followed found him

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