Odet de Coligny (10 July 1517 – 21 March 1571) was a French aristocrat, cardinal, Bishop-elect of Beauvais, Peer of France, and member of the French Royal Council. From 1534 he was usually referred to as the Cardinal of Châtillon.
Odet was son of Gaspard I de Coligny and Louise de Montmorency, and brother of Pierre (1515–1534), Gaspard (1519–1572), and François, Seigneur d'Andelot (1521–1569).
His birth at Châtillon-Coligny on 10 July 1517, his parents' second son, was recorded in his mother's book of hours. He and his brothers were home schooled, under the direction of Nicolas Bérauld of Orleans, a friend of Erasmus.
Coligny occupied high church offices during this initial part of his career. He became prior of Saint-Étienne in Beaume in 1530. On 10 October 1531 he was nominated by the King to be Abbot of St. Euvertius in Orleans, for which he obtained the necessary papal bulls on 13 April 1533; he resigned the benefice in 1537.
At the papal consistory of 7 November 1533 (at 16 and while still a layman) Odet de Coligny was created cardinal deacon, receiving the red hat and the titular church of Santi Sergio e Bacco three days later. Soon afterwards he became Abbot of the royal abbey of Nôtre-Dame de Vauluisant (1534-1553). In 1534 he became a Canon of La Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.
On 29 April 1534 Cardinal de Coligny's nomination to the metropolitan see of Toulouse by King Francis I was approved in Consistory by Pope Clement VII, despite his never having been ordained a priest. The Cardinal required a dispensation for the archbishopric, since he was only sixteen, far below the minimum canonical age. The dispensation was granted by Pope Clement on 28 August 1534. On 6 September 1534, Odet de Coligny was ordained Subdeacon, and on 13 September he was ordained Deacon.
Archbishop of Toulouse, Bishop of Beauvais
Châtillon held the post of Administrator of the diocese of Toulouse, never having been consecrated a bishop, until his resignation from that role on 20 October 1550. At the age of seventeen, he participated in the papal conclave of 11–12 October 1534, in which Cardinal Alessandro Farnese was elected Pope Paul III. A year later, on 20 October 1535, his nomination to the See of Beauvais was approved in Consistory by Pope Paul III. He held the Administratorship of Beauvais until he was deprived of all his offices and benefices by Pope Pius IV in 1563. The spiritual functions of the Bishop of Beauvais were carried out from 1535-1538 by Philibert de Beaujeu, titular Bishop of Bethlehem; from 1538 to 1546 the bishop was Antoine le Tonnelier, titular Bishop of Damascus; the Bishop of Hippo from 1546 to 1555; the Bishop of Hebron served from 1555 to 1556; the Bishop of Sebaste from 1556-1563; and from 1563 to 1569, Bishop Philippe le Musnier.
The Cardinal was named Abbot of Saint-Lucien de Beauvais by the King in 1537. He was still holding the benefice in 1553, though it is not known whether he continued to hold it until his deposition on 31 March 1563.
Cardinal de Châtillon took part in the Ninth Session of the Ecumenical Council of Trent, which opened on 13 December 1545.
King Francis I died on 31 March 1547, and it was reported a week later by Sir Edward Wotton, the English Ambassador, that Cardinal Odet and his brother François were among the chief favorites of Henri II. As a Peer of France, Cardinal de Châtillon attended the funeral of Francis I in Saint Denis, and the Coronation of Henri II at Rheims on 26 July.
Cardinal de Châtillon participated in the papal conclave of 29 November 1549 – 7 February 1550. He arrived late, however, on 12 December, along with Cardinals de Guise, du Bellay, Vendome, and Tournon. A letter that he wrote to the Constable de Montmorency on 31 January 1550, during the Conclave, provides an intimate view of the politics of the conclave, and provides an account of the sudden death of one of the leading candidates, Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi, a nephew of Pope Leo X. Ridolfi had been greatly favored by King Henri II of France. He opted for the deaconry of S. Adriano on 25 February 1549. Cardinal de Châtillon obtained from Pope Julius III the necessary bulls for his confirmation as Abbot of Fontainejean, in the diocese of Sens, shortly after the new Pope's election. The monastery was burned and the monks slaughtered in 1562. The Cardinal de Châtillon, who had apostasized in favor of Calvinism, was deprived of all of his benefices by Pope Pius IV on 31 March 1563.
The Cardinal did not stay long in Italy after the papal Coronation. He was back in France by 4 March, when he was at Orléans; on 11 March 1550, he wrote a letter from Châtillon; and on 29 May he was following the Court again and was in Boulogne, which King Henri had entered in triumph on 15 May after the city's capture from the English.
On 20 October 1550 Cardinal Odet de Châtillon was appointed Abbot Commendatory of Saint Jean de Sens. He also became the seventy-seventh Abbot, the fifth Abbot Commendatory, of the royal Abbey of Fleury, also known as the Abbey of St. Benoît-sur-Loire. He held this benefice until he was deposed in 1563, though the abbey was sacked by the Huguenot army of the Prince de Condé in 1562.
Protector of Ronsard and Rabelais
As a member of the King's Council, Châtillon was placed in charge of the library of France's Royal Privy Council and, using this and his other offices, he protected his friends Ronsard and Rabelais. In this he was working with Cardinal Jean du Bellay, who had been Rabelais' original protector. In 1552, after the Cardinal had obtained for the latter a ten-year monopoly on book-printing, Rabelais dedicated his Quart Livre of Pantagruel to Odet in gratitude. The Dedicatory Epistle is dated 28 January 1552.
In 1553 he succeeded Cardinal Claude de Longuy de Givry as Abbot Commendatory of Saint Bénigne de Dijon, and held the benefice until he was deposed in 1563. In 1554 the Cardinal de Châtillon ordered published the Synodial Constitutions of the Diocese of Beauvais, containing some twenty-one chapters on the duties and conduct of the clergy, including the requirement that they keep their beards shaved (la barbe rase) and their hair cut short. The Cardinal, according to his portraits, wore a full beard, which was becoming the fashion, and had very well trimmed hair. The statutes, in fact, were a reworking of those promulgated twenty-five years earlier.
In 1556 he became Abbot Commendatory of the Abbey of Ferrières on the appointment of King Henry II, with the confirmation of Pope Pius IV. Four years later, Pius named him grand inquisitor of France, though the French Parliament's opposition to the Inquisition prevented him from taking up the post.