Oda of Meinersen

Oda was a member of a noble dynasty from Lower Saxony, the Meinersen. Oda's parents are unknown,[1] but her brother, Burchard, was the vicedominus of the bishops of Halberstadt between 1227 and 1269.[2]

Oda is only mentioned in documents issued in 1248 and 1249. She was abbess of Gernrode by 30 June 1248, on which date she is named in a charter issued by Archbishop Wilbrand of Magdeburg, which records the payment of interest to the Apostolic Camera.[3]

A charter issued in 1249 dealt with the settlement of a dispute between Oda and the convent of Gernrode about the sale of two golden tablets. The tablets had been donated to the convent by Henry I of Anhalt. The charter was witnessed by three members of the convent, including the provost, Gertrude I of Anhalt, who was Henry I’s daughter, and would succeed Oda as abbess of Gernrode after 1260.[4]

• Andreas Popperodt: Historia Ecclesiae Gerenrodenses 1560, erste Fassung bei Johann Christoph Bekmann in Accesiones Historia Anhaltinae 1716 als Annales Gernrodensis.
• O. von Heinemann, Geschichte der Abtei und Beschreibung der Stiftskirche zu Gernrode. (H. C. Huch, Quedlinburg 1877).
• H.K. Schulze, Das Stift Gernrode. Unter Verwendung eines Manuskriptes von Reinhold Specht. Mit einem kunstgeschichtlichen Beitrag von Günther W. Vorbrodt. (Mitteldeutsche Forschungen Bd. 38), Böhlau, Köln 1965.
• H. Hartung: Zur Vergangenheit von Gernrode (Carl Mittag, Gernrode 1912).
• P. Przybilla, et al, Die Edelherren von Meinersen: Genealogie, Herrschaft und Besitz vom 12. bis zum 14. Jahrhundert (Hahnsche, 2007).

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