The Man Behind the Bayeux Tapestry

by Trevor Rowley

  Much attention has been paid to the apparent incongruity between Odo the bishop and Odo the secular lord. This tension becomes particularly obvious from the Battle of Hastings onwards, when Odo assumes the role of a colonial baron and is often harsh in his dealings with the English. Such apparent conflicts of interest were common during the early medieval period, but those involved had no trouble in operating successfully within both spheres. Characteristically, Odo’s own seal shows him as a bishop in clerical dress on one side and as a mounted earl in battledress on the other (colour fig 1). However, he does not seem to have been particularly pious and spent little time on doctrinal studies. ‘Odo found the early Cistercian and Savignac literal interpretation of the Rule of St Benedict and emphasis on manual work disturbing’ (Bates 1975). Occasionally we find references to his piety, as at St Albans Abbey, where Odo was remembered in the list of benefactors for having returned three hides of land ‘for the sake of his soul’ (Cownie 1998, 98), but this was a standard clause in such documents.

  Orderic was living at a time when there was increased emphasis on the spiritual requirements of the religious life and was generally unsympathetic towards churchmen who meddled in politics (Bates 1975, 2). Hence Orderic’s writing combines admiration and censure in his account of Odo’s life. Unfortunately it is the censure that has tended to be amplified over the centuries and which often prompts a negative kneejerk reaction to the very mention of Odo’s name.

  As for his personal life, it is known that he kept a mistress and that they had a son, John, who was born in around 1080. Orderic regretted that, ‘Sometimes the spirit triumphed in him [Odo] to good ends, but on other occasions the flesh overcame the spirit with evil consequences. Yielding to the weakness of the flesh he had a son named John’, who served Henry I and ‘is renowned there for his ready speech and great integrity’. We hear of John from an incident where he brought the news of the death of Henry’s nephew William ‘Clito’, Count of Flanders to him in 1128 (OV, iii, 264). Descendants of Odo continued to play an important governmental role in Normandy and Richard du Hommet, Constable of Normandy under Henry 11, was Odo’s great-grandson (Power 2002, 76).

  In the eleventh century, clergy, even bishops, were known for keeping mistresses. Orderic Vitalis recorded that Robert; Archbishop of Rouen (d. 1037) had a wife called Herleva, whom the bishop claimed he took in his capacity as count. He was also accused of selling church treasures in order to buy women. Orderic observed that ‘the practice of celibacy among the clergy was so relaxed that not only priests but even bishops freely shared their beds with concubines and openly boasted of their numerous progeny’ (OV, v, 121). Such behaviour became increasingly difficult to defend as the eleventh century progressed and at the Council of Lisieux in 1064 clerical marriages were prohibited in Normandy. Nevertheless, the situation remained unresolved until the Lateran Councils of 1123 and 1139, which ruled definitively against such unions. Part of William’s case for the invasion of England was the need to reform the English Church, which was accused of pluralism, concubinage and simony as well as tolerating worldly prelates. William’s own Church in Normandy as represented by Odo was vulnerable on this issue and the emissaries that went to persuade Pope Alexander II of the validity of the Norman cause had a difficult time. The pope eventually agreed that the campaign against England could be waged as a Holy War, according to William of Poitiers.

  In keeping with the times in which he lived, Odo’s brand of Christianity was muscular in nature, with little room for compassion. This was illustrated by an anecdote related by the cleric Lanfranc where Odo had condemned a man, who had killed one of his stags, to wear fetters permanently. The man became exceptionally pious and the sound of his rattling chains became a public symbol of sanctity, until after two years his chains fell off as he prayed prostrate before the altar of the Holy Cross (Cowdrey, 106). Odo along with his fellow Norman bishops is known to have issued anathemas, calling upon God to smite his foes with ‘eternal malediction’ (Tabuteau 1988, 207). It also appears that Odo preached the virtues of the invasion from his pulpit in Bayeux in order to increase the size of his own contingent in the invading force. At Hastings along with other churchmen he exhorted the Norman troops to destroy their English opponents. According to Odo a leader ‘should be gentle as a lamb to good men and to the obedient and humble, but as harsh as a lion to law breakers’ (OV, viii, 151).

  • Literary Sources •

  The writing of secular history was a relatively new concept in eleventh-century Western Europe. After the Conquest of England several chronicles were written, both in Normandy and in England: some were specifically about King William and the Conquest of England, others were more ambitious historical surveys. It is from these accounts that historians have largely gathered their ideas about and opinions of William, King Harold, Bishop Odo and the other principal players in the Anglo-Norman world of the eleventh century. None of these accounts can be regarded as totally accurate, and none was written with a view to producing objective history.

  Perhaps because of his double fall from power there is no contemporary ‘Life of Odo’, and none of his letters survive. There is a laudatory poem, written by Serlo, one of the Bayeux Cathedral canons, that simply expresses pleasure that Odo has been released from prison. One of the earliest surviving sources is the Gesta Guillelmi II ducis Normannorum et regis Anglorum (Deeds of Duke William) by William of Poitiers (c. 1020–90), written in the early 1070s (Davis and Chibnall 1998). William was a native of Normandy who studied in Poitiers before returning to become a chaplain to Duke William and then archdeacon in the diocese of Lisieux. After the Conquest he also became a canon of the church of St Martin in Dover. William’s account is at times cloyingly sycophantic to his hero, William the Conqueror, but is important for the detail it contains, much of it derived from personal experience. It is possible that William of Poitiers and Odo were associated in some way and there is a suggestion that Odo commissioned him to write the Gesta. William depicts Odo as ‘uniquely and most steadfastly loyal to the king, from whom he had received great honours and hoped to get still more’ (GG 166), so it was clearly written before Odo’s fall from grace in 1082.

  Another early history was the Gesta Normannorum Ducum by William of Jumièges (1026–70), written about 1070. William was a monk at the abbey of Jumièges; his account was based on an earlier history of the Normans written by Dudo of St Quentin. Dudo’s work, Historia Normannorum (1015–30) was revised and eventually updated to 1070 by William of Jumièges, possibly at the command of William the Conqueror (Christiansen 1998). This Gesta was later expanded again by the twelfth-century chroniclers Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigni (Van Houts 1995). William has little more to add about Odo, but his account of the Battle of Hastings is similar in its details to those depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. Another account, believed by many to be contemporary with the Battle of Hastings, is the Carmen de Hastingae Proelio (Song of the Battle of Hastings) (Barlow 1999). The Proelio is attributed to Bishop Guy of Amiens, uncle to Guy of Ponthieu who figures in the early stages of the Bayeux Tapestry, capturing Harold Godwinson on his arrival on French soil in 1064. Odo does not feature at all in the Proelio, but it is important in his story because this omission contrasts revealingly with the Tapestry, where Odo plays a leading role. The poem is also thought to be one of very few versions to provide a detailed non-Norman version of events.

  Two later accounts are of particular interest: the Historia Ecclesiastica (History of the Church) by Orderic Vitalis (Chibnall 1968–80) and the Roman de Rou (History of Rollo) by Wace (Burgess 2004). Orderic was born in Shropshire in 1075 to a Norman father and an English mother; when he was ten he was sent to the monastery of St-Evroul-en-Ouche in Normandy, where he spent the rest of his life. His narrative started off as a history of his monastery, but developed into a general history of his age, which he wrote between around 1110 and 1141. Orderic was well informed and a vivid narrator; the range, variety and volume of his account give his his
tory a particular importance. Orderic’s perceptive, if often slanted, and his graphic character sketch of Odo has remained with him over the centuries. His attitude to Bishop Odo was ambivalent, torn perhaps between the early praise heaped upon him by William of Poitiers and later accounts of his various calumnies, and which would have been in circulation when Orderic was writing and painted Odo in a very different light. On the one hand, he is described as ‘a man of eloquence and statesmanship’; on the other, he was ‘frivolous and ambitious’. Orderic seemed on occasion to despair of his subject, ‘What shall I say of Odo, bishop of Bayeux …? In this man it seems to me, vices were mingled with virtues, but he was given more to worldly affairs than to spiritual contemplation.’

  Wace of Bayeux (c. 1115–c. 1183) was a poet, born in Jersey and brought up in Normandy, who ended his career as a canon of Bayeux Cathedral. His history of the dukes of Normandy started with Rollo and ended with Robert Curthose’s defeat at the Battle of Tinchebrai (1106), and appears to have been written between 1160 and the mid-1170s. Wace’s history provides details not available elsewhere, in particular, concerning Odo’s actions during the Battle of Hastings. Like the other chroniclers, Wace used earlier sources to compose his history, one of which seems to have been the Bayeux Tapestry, which he would have known from his time in the cathedral chapter at Bayeux. Like Orderic Vitalis, Wace paints both sides of Odo’s character – as the hero during the Battle of Hastings and as the traitor in 1082.

  Of all the contemporary accounts, it is the Bayeux Tapestry which has had by far the biggest impact on the general perception of Odo and of the Norman Conquest as a whole. The Tapestry provides us with a pictorial depiction of the Norman Conquest, often imparting detailed information not available from any other source. It will probably never be absolutely certain who commissioned the Tapestry, but, despite ingenious arguments for a range of other possible sponsors, Bishop Odo remains the clear front-runner in any wager (for recent research into the Tapestry, see Foys et al. 2009; Lewis et al. 2011).

  There are also a number of English accounts of the Norman Conquest which contain information about Odo, most notably, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Whitelock et al. 1961). The Chronicle often covers events tersely, as in its description of Odo as regent, ‘the foremost man after the King, and he had an earldom in England’; but on other occasions, such as Odo’s revolt in 1088, it provides more details than other accounts. There are several twelfth-century English chronicles, the most relevant of which is that of John of Worcester (d. c. 1140), formerly attributed to the monk Florence of Worcester (Darlington and McGurk 1995 and 1998). John’s account provides a partisan English account of the Conquest, particularly, details of Odo and the 1088 revolt.

  Other English sources include William of Malmesbury’s Deeds of the Kings of England (c. 1125–27), which not only includes references to Odo but also provides valuable shrewd observations about the bishop’s contemporaries (Mynors et al. 1998; Winterbottom & Thomson 2002). Eadmer, a monk at Christ Church, Canterbury, wrote a History of Recent Events in England, which covers the period between around 1066 and 1122 and provides a conventional pen portrait of the bishop and a long account of the Penenden Heath trial (Bosanquet 1964), where Odo was accused of purloining monastic estates, particularly those of Christ Church, Canterbury. Henry of Huntingdon (c. 1088–c. 1154), in his History of the English People, again records Odo’s role in the 1088 rebellion (Greenway 1996).

  There are numerous documents resulting from Odo’s work as Bishop of Bayeux, Earl of Kent and regent, but these are ‘dry, often difficult to use, and of little intimate significance’ (Bates 1975) and have to be carefully sieved to reveal anything of Odo’s character. Domesday Book (c. 1086) provides a great wealth of information about Odo as a magnate, as a deliverer of English lands to Normans and as an appropriator of English estates, but a definitive account of Odo’s English lands remains to be written.

  Surprisingly, there is no modern biography of this extraordinary man, but David Bates has been responsible for the revision of opinions about the bishop. In his doctoral thesis and a series of articles Bates has produced comprehensive accounts of Odo’s life, which have established a much more balanced and sympathetic interpretation of the bishop’s activities (Bates 1970, Bates 1975 and Bates 2004–11).

  2

  • Duke Robert ‘the Magnificent’ •

  The story of Odo is inextricably linked to that of his half-brother, William. Without that fraternal relationship he would have probably been a minor lord of Lower Normandy. Odo’s dramatic achievements mirror those of his brother and his principal failure was caused by the breaking of the trust that William had placed in him. Between 1050 and 1082 the two brothers worked together; firstly, to build Normandy and the Norman Church, and after 1066 to conquer, pacify and rule England. For the final four years of William’s life, Odo was imprisoned and it is unlikely that the two men met during that time.

  William the Conqueror was born in 1027/28; his father was Duke Robert I, called ‘the Magnificent’, allegedly because of his generosity in dispensing treasures when on pilgrimage. William’s mother was Herleva, the duke’s mistress, who, within a few years of William’s birth, married and had two more sons, one of whom was Odo. William became Duke of Normandy in 1035 on the death of his father and Odo’s trajectory to the summit of Anglo-Norman society had started.

  • Duke Robert I and Herleva •

  On the death of his father, Duke Richard II (996–1026), Robert’s elder brother, Richard, became duke, while Robert was made Count of Hiémois, a wooded region straddling the dioceses of Bayeux and Séez, as his share of the inheritance. Such divisions of territory echoed the arrangements of the Frankish era, when on the death of a king the empire was divided between all male heirs. Within a year, Duke Richard III died and Robert became duke. There were rumours that Robert had poisoned his elder brother, which resulted in his acquiring an alternative nickname – le Diable (the Devil). Subsequently, Robert’s time as duke (1027–35) was characterised by the extension of the power and land of a number of baronial families, and he also made clerical enemies by plundering Church property. The Burgundian chronicler Hugh of Flavigny claimed that the duchy was ‘debauched with anarchy’ under Robert’s rule (Bates 1982, 100). Nevertheless, Robert did play an inadvertent role in later Anglo–Norman politics; during his reign he continued to give assistance to the exiled brothers Edward and Alfred, sons of the English king, Ethelred the Unready, and his wife, the Norman Emma. William of Jumièges observed that the English princes were treated by the dukes as members of their own family. The friendship between the Norman ducal family and Edward, who later became King of England, as ‘the Confessor’, must have contributed to the credibility of Edward having promised William that he would succeed Edward as king. Regardless of the historical veracity of the promise, the strength of this relationship meant that it was feasible to contemporaries that such a commitment could have been made.

  Herleva was the daughter of Fulbert, a pollinctor, who prepared corpses for burial. According to Orderic Vitalis (1075–c. 1142), her father later became an official of the ducal household (cubicularii ducis – duke’s chamberlain) (van Houts 1986). We know that Robert occupied Falaise Castle immediately after the death of his father, Duke Richard II, in August 1026, and his liaison with Herleva probably started soon after that. William of Malmesbury observed that Duke Robert kept Herleva as if she was his lawful wife and that he treated her ‘with distinguished respect’ throughout her life. In addition to her father, her brothers also joined the ducal court. Robert also fathered a daughter called Adelaide, later, Countess of Aumale. Such relationships were common amongst the rulers of Frankish principalities even as late as the eleventh century and concubines were recognised as second-class wives with some rights under customary law – a convention known as ‘Danish marriage’. In the 1030s the chronicler Ralph Glaber wrote that the Norman dukes often produced heirs with concubines and compared such procreation with that of the
biblical patriarchs of the Israelites. Bates explains that:

  It had been common practice for centuries for young male members of the aristocracy to take on a long-term partner with whom they did not go through a full marriage ceremony of the kind increasingly required by the Church. Such a partner might in due course be supplanted by a wife, or might form a ménage à trois with one. The sons of both unions might be considered as potential heirs. (Bates 2003)

  Duke Richard III and his brother Duke Robert both embraced this tradition by taking mistresses and producing children outside formal marriage. Robert may have been married briefly to Cnut’s sister Margaret, usually known as Estrith, but we know little about this union. It could, however, be linked with the story of Robert sending a large fleet to invade England in 1033, after Cnut refused to recognise the exiled brothers Edward and Alfred (Lawson 1993, 105). William of Jumièges’s version of this story claims that the fleet sailed, but was hit by bad weather and shipwrecked off the Breton coast. William of Malmesbury claimed that bad weather prevented the fleet sailing and the boats were left to rot in Rouen and ‘much damaged by lapse of time, were still to be seen in Rouen in our own day’ (Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, 1, 320–1).