# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Odo (d.1097)

​ODO (d. 1097), bishop of Bayeux and earl of Kent, was son of Herluin of Conteville by Herleva of Falaise, the concubine of Robert of Normandy, and mother of William the Conqueror. Guibert of Nogent actually calls Odo natural son of Duke Robert, and own brother to William the Conqueror (De Sanctorum Pignoribus, i. ch. 3). William of Malmesbury (Gesta Regum, p. 333) expressly states that Herluin and Herleva were married before Duke Robert's death in 1035; but Odo, who was their eldest son, was perhaps not born before 1036. Odo's younger brother was Robert of Mortain [q. v.], and he had also two sisters: Muriel, who married Odo cum Capello (Wace, 6026), and another, who married the Sire de la Ferté (Taylor, Translation of Wace, p. 237; Stapleton, Rot. Scacc. Norm. i. p. lxxix). Herluin had another son, Ralph, by a former marriage. Odo received the bishopric of Bayeux from his brother William about October 1049 (Ordericus Vitalis, iii. 263, note 2), and, as bishop, witnesses a charter of St. Evroul on 25 Sept. 1050 (ib. v. 180). He witnesses various charters during the subsequent years, and was present at ecclesiastical councils held at Rouen in 1055, 1061, and 1063. He was present at the council held at Lillebonne in 1066 to consider the projected invasion of England, and, according to one account, contributed one hundred ships to the fleet (Lyttelton, Hist. of Henry II, i. 523), though Wace (6186) assigns him forty only. Odo accompanied the Norman host, and not only exhorted the soldiers the night before the battle, but, despite his ecclesiastical character, fought in full armour at Hastings, though armed with a mace instead of a sword. When the Normans turned in flight, Odo was prominent in rallying the fugitives, and is so depicted in the Bayeux tapestry (Wace, 8131).
After his coronation William bestowed on Odo the castle of Dover and earldom of Kent; and when, three months later, the king crossed over to Normandy, Odo and William FitzOsbern [q. v.] were left as viceroys in his absence. Odo's special care as Earl of Kent was to secure communication with the continent, and to guard against attack from that quarter. The rule of the viceroys was harsh in the extreme; ‘they wrought castles wide amongst the people, and poor folk oppressed’ (English Chronicle); they protected their plundering and licentious followers, and paid no heed to the complaints of the English; while their zeal for William's policy of castle-building served to increase their unpopularity (Flor. Wig. ii. 1). While Odo was absent to the north of the Thames, the men of Kent called in Eustace of Boulogne; but, though Eustace was repulsed by the Norman garrison of Dover, the discontent with the rule of his viceroys compelled William to hurry back to England in December 1067. Odo did not again hold a position of equal authority; but for fifteen years he was second in power only to William himself. William of Malmesbury styles him ‘Totius Angliæ vicedominus sub rege;’ and Orderic says: ‘Veluti secundus rex passim jura dabat.’ There is, however, no sufficient reason to describe him as justiciar, though from time to time he discharged functions which were afterwards exercised by that officer (see Stubbs, Constitutional History, § 120). Orderic also describes Odo as ‘palatinus Cantiæ consul;’ but it is uncertain whether he ever really possessed the regalia as a true palatine earl, or even bore the title of earl, though he certainly exercised the jurisdiction of the ealdorman (ib. § 124). Still he witnesses charters as ‘Comes Cantiæ,’ and in 1102 his nephew, William of Mortain, unsuccessfully claimed the earldom of Kent as his heir (Will. Malm. Gesta Regum, p. 473). Besides a great number of lordships in Kent, Odo received lands in twelve other counties (Domesday Book, esp. pp. 6–11), and acquired vast wealth, in part at least, by the spoliation of abbeys and churches. The most famous instance of such spoliation was his usurpation of certain rights and possessions of the see of Canterbury. Lanfranc claimed restitution, and by William's order the suit was heard before the shire-moot of Kent at Penenden Heath, with the result that Odo had to surrender his spoil (Anglia Sacra, i. 334–5). The abbeys of Ramsey and of Evesham, the latter of which lost a large part of its lands in a contention with Odo, were less fortunate (Chron. Ramsey, p. 154; Hist. Evesham, pp. 96–7, both in Rolls Ser.) On the other hand, Odo was a benefactor of St. Augustine's, Canterbury ​(Hist. St. Augustine's, pp. 350–3, Rolls Ser.), and as justiciar redressed the wrong that Picot, the Norman sheriff of Cambridgeshire, had done to the see of Rochester (Anglia Sacra, i. 336–9).
Odo was present at the synod which, at Whitsuntide 1072, decided on the claims of Canterbury. In 1075 he was one of the leaders of the host which suppressed the rising of Ralph Guader [q. v.] in Norfolk (Flor. Wig. ii. 11). On 23 Oct. 1077 he was present at the consecration of the church of Bec (Chron. Beccense ap. Migne, Patrologia, cl. 646). In 1080 he presided in a court which decided on the liberties of Ely (Hist. Eliensis, pp. 251–2), and in June 1081 was present when the claims of the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds were decided (Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey, i. 347–9, Rolls Ser.). In 1080 Odo was sent by William to take vengeance on Northumberland for the murder of Bishop Walcher [q. v.] of Durham. The whole county was harried, the innocent and guilty were punished indiscriminately, and Odo himself carried off from Durham a pastoral staff of rare workmanship and material (Sym. Dunelm. ii. 210–11).
Odo had now reached the zenith of his career; but by means of his wealth he hoped to rise yet higher. A soothsayer had foretold that the successor of Hildebrand should bear the name of Odo. This prophecy the Bishop of Bayeux thought to realise in his own person. So ‘stuffing the pilgrims' wallets with letters and coin’ (Will. Malm. Gesta Regum, p. 334), he bribed the leading Roman citizens, and even built himself a palace, which he adorned with such splendour that there was no house like it at Rome (Liber de Hyda, p. 296). Odo further determined to go to Rome in person, and, having bribed Hugh, earl of Chester, and many other Norman knights to accompany him, was on the point of setting out from England when William heard of his designs. The king hurried across from Normandy, and met Odo in the Isle of Wight. There, in an assembly, William set forth his brother's oppressions, exactions, and intended ambitions. Despite William's orders, no one would arrest the bishop, and the king seized him with his own hands, meeting Odo's protest with a declaration that he arrested, not the bishop, but the earl. Wace (9199–9248) alleges that Odo's intention was to secure the crown for himself in case of William's death, and that the immediate cause of his arrest was his failure to render an account of his revenues. Gregory VII severely censured the treatment of the bishop, both in a letter to William himself, and in another to Hugh, archbishop of Lyons (Jaffé, Monumenta Gregoriana, pp. 519, 571). Odo was, however, kept in captivity at Rouen for over four years. When William, on his deathbed, ordered his prisoners to be released, he specially excepted his brother; but, on the urgent entreaty of Robert of Mortain and others, at length gave way. Odo was at once set free, and was present at his brother's funeral at Caen. He speedily recovered all his ancient honour in Normandy, and, according to Orderic, already plotted to displace William Rufus by Robert in England. In the autumn of 1087 he went over to England, regained his earldom, and was present at William II's first midwinter council. But he could not recover his old importance; and, being envious of the superior authority of William of St. Calais, bishop of Durham, he now became the centre of the Norman conspiracy against William. When the war broke out, in Lent 1088, Odo himself plundered Kent, and especially the lands of Lanfranc, to whose advice his four years' imprisonment was said to have been due (Will. Malm. Gesta Regum, p. 361). The king marched against his uncle in person, and captured Tunbridge Castle. At the news, Odo fled to his brother Robert at Pevensey, where, after a six weeks' siege, he was compelled to yield, promising to surrender Rochester also, and then leave England. For this purpose Odo was sent with a guard to Rochester; but the bishop's friends rescued him, and refused to give up the city. A fresh siege soon forced Odo to seek peace once more; but it was only after a remonstrance from his advisers that William would grant any terms, and even then the bishop's petition for the honours of war was indignantly rejected. The English in William's army cried: ‘Halters! halters for the traitor bishop! Let not the doer of evil go unharmed!’ Odo was, however, permitted to depart, but with the loss of all his possessions in England, to which country he never returned.
Odo aspired with more success to hold the first place in Normandy under the weak rule of Robert. It was by his advice that, in the autumn of 1088, the duke's brother Henry and Robert of Belleme [q. v.] were arrested; and when the news brought Roger of Montgomery [q. v.] to Normandy, Odo urged his nephew to destroy the power of the house of Talvas. He also took a prominent part in the campaign of Mans in 1089, and in the opposition to William's invasion of Normandy in 1091 (Ordericus Vitalis, iv. 16). According to Ordericus, it was Odo who, in 1093, performed the mar​riage ceremony between Philip of France and the infamous Bertrada of Montfort, receiving as his reward certain churches at Mantes; but it seems probable that he did no more than countenance the union by his presence (ib. iii. 387, and M. Le Prevost's note ad loc.) Odo was present at the council of Clermont in November 1095, when Pope Urban II proclaimed the first crusade, and at the synod of the Norman bishops at Rouen in the following February, when the acts of the council were considered. When Robert of Normandy took the cross, Odo elected to accompany him rather than remain at home under the rule of his enemy William; so in September 1096 he left Normandy. With his nephew Robert he visited Rome, and received the papal blessing. Duke Robert wintered in Apulia; but Odo crossed over to Sicily, where in February 1097 he died at Palermo. He was buried in the cathedral, where Count Roger of Sicily built him a splendid tomb.
In history Odo figures, not unnaturally, as a turbulent noble, who had nothing of the ecclesiastic but the name. Ordericus makes the Conqueror describe him as fickle and ambitious, the slave of fleshly lust and monstrous cruelty, who would never abandon his vain and wanton wickedness; the scorner of religion, the artful author of sedition, the oppressor of the people, the plunderer of churches, whose release meant certain mischief to many. But Ordericus himself is perhaps more just when he says that Odo's character was a mixture of vices and virtues, in which affection for secular affairs prevailed over the good deeds of the spiritual life. William of Poitiers (209 A.B.), writing perhaps before Odo's fall, eulogises him for his eloquence and wisdom in council and debate, for his liberality, justice, and loyalty to his brother; ‘he had no wish to use arms, but rejoiced in necessary war so far as religion permitted him. Normans and Bretons served under him gladly, and even the English were not so barbarous that they could not recognise in the bishop and earl a man who was to be feared, respected, and loved.’ While Odo was thus devoted to secular affairs, and so far forgetful of his sacred calling that he had a son (named John), he was nevertheless a liberal patron of religion and learning. He endowed his own church at Bayeux with much wealth, and rebuilt the cathedral: the lower part of the western towers and the crypt are relics of his work. He established monks in the church of St. Vigor at Bayeux, but afterwards in 1096 bestowed his foundation, as a cell, on the abbey of Dijon (Charter ap. Migne, clv. 475–6). Guibert describes a curious instance of Odo's zeal for sacred relics (De Sanctorum Pignoribus, i. 3). Odo also had instructed, at his own expense, a number of scholars, among whom were Thomas, archbishop of York, and his brother Samson, bishop of Worcester; and Thurstan, abbot of Glastonbury. Another dependent of Odo's was Arnulf, the first Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, who accompanied the Bishop of Bayeux on his departure from Normandy in 1096, and owed his subsequent promotion to the wealth bequeathed him by his patron (Guibert of Nogent, Gesta Dei per Francos, viii. 1). It is possible that, among Odo's benefactions to his cathedral, we must include the famous Bayeux tapestry, which was perhaps executed for him by English artists (Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii. 562–572).
When Ordericus wrote, Odo's son John was living at the court of Henry I. John was perhaps the father of Robert ‘nepos episcopi,’ who married the heiress of William du Hommet, and by her left a son, Richard de Humez, who became hereditary constable of Normandy (Stapleton, Rot. Scacc. Norm. ii. pp. clxxxii–clxxxiv).
[Ordericus Vitalis (Soc. de l'Hist. de France); Will. of Poitiers and Will. of Jumièges in Duchesne's Historiæ Normannorum Scriptores; English Chronicle; William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum and Gesta Pontificum, Symeon Dunelmensis, Liber de Hyda, Henry of Huntingdon, pp. 207, 211, 214–15, Memorials of St. Dunstan, pp. 144, 153, 238 (these six in the Rolls Ser.); Flor. Wig. (English Hist. Soc.); Guibert of Nogent's Gesta Dei per Francos, vii. 15, and viii. 1, and De Sanctorum Pignoribus, i. 3, ap. Migne's Patrologia, p. clvi; Wace's Roman de Rou, ed. Andresen, and transl. Taylor; Wilkins's Concilia, i. 323–4; Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 334–9; Gallia Christiana, xi. 353–60; Freeman's Norman Conquest, and William Rufus.]
C. L. K.