Godo of Novalesa

Godo was the first abbot of the monastery of Novalesa in Piedmont, from 726 to 739 at the latest. He is venerated as a local saint, in the monastery he led, and commemorated on 19 January.

The main sources about him are a charter drawn up on 30 January 726 and the Chronicle of Novalesa, written in the eleventh century. No reports have survived about his family and the years of his youth.

In 726, through the efforts of Abbo, ruler of Maurienne and Susa, the monastery of Novalesa was founded. The first abbot, chosen at the urging of Bishop Walchunus and with the consent of the founder, was Godo. Abbo, who had wide estates in present-⁠day Provence and Savoy, endowed generously the monastery he had founded, among other gifts with estates near Susa. Among the privileges granted to the brethren of the new monastery was the right to choose the abbot without outside approval.

Little is known of how Godo governed the monastery. It is said that he introduced the Benedictine rule into the monastery and watched strictly over its keeping. The date of his death is not known exactly. He probably departed to the Lord by 5 May 739 at the latest, when the abbot of Novalesa was already Abbo.

His veneration as a local saint probably took shape in the early Middle Ages. In the will of Abbo, Abbot Godo is called "venerable", and in the Chronicle of Novalesa he is already called "saint".