The Man Behind the Bayeux Tapestry

by Trevor Rowley

  It was at about this time, in 1035, that the first three of Tancred de Hauteville’s sons, William, Drogo and Humphrey, travelled south from Hauteville-la-Guichard in the Cotentin to Italy. They joined the forces of Count Rainulf I, who had acquired Aversa on the Campanian Plain a few years earlier. This was the first Italian territory to fall into Norman hands. There is no suggestion that there was any direct link between Duke Robert and the Hauteville sons, but in its way their journey was to prove as momentous in the long run as his own. It was two of the younger Hauteville brothers, Robert and Roger, who later in the eleventh century would become rulers of the Norman territories of southern Italy and Sicily.

  After the sea crossing from Bari to Dyrrachium (now the port of Durrës in Albania), Robert travelled to Constantinople by the old Roman road, the Via Egnatia. Leaving Constantinople, we know that he joined forces with the fearsome Fulk of Anjou and they travelled together along the old imperial highway which ran to Antioch, from whence the pilgrims would have travelled south down the Syrian and Palestine coast. According to William of Jumièges, Robert travelled in style and scattered alms along his route. Later, the story developed that because the Franks had a reputation for meanness in Constantinople, Robert had his mule shod in gold before entering the city. However, Wace, writing a century and a half after the event, claims that ‘barefoot and in rags, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, with great devotion’ (Burgess 2004, 7). William of Jumièges also records that as a sign of his humility Robert refused precious gifts from the Byzantine emperor. When in Jerusalem it is said that Robert acquired one of St Stephen’s fingers. Stephen, referred to as a protomartyr, had been stoned to death as early as c.AD 34; the eastern gate of Jerusalem, close to where he died, is named after the saint. The relic was sent back to Normandy and subsequently formed the basis of a major cult, not only in Normandy but throughout the rest of France, and when William, as duke, founded his abbey in Caen, it was dedicated to St Stephen in veneration of the saint and the memory of his father, Robert.

  Robert died from unknown causes on the return journey in Nicaea (now Iznik) in Asia Minor early in July 1035. Robert’s death was followed by the usual stories alleging that he too had been murdered; according to Wace, ‘A young boy poisoned him on the advice of a wicked relative’. The story was elaborated by William of Malmesbury, who made the unlikely claim that Robert died ‘by poison administered to him by an official named Ralph Mowin. This Ralph committed the crime in the hope of obtaining the dukedom, but when he came home his offence became known, and, shunned by all, he departed into exile’ (Douglas 1964, 409). Duke Robert was interred in the cathedral at Nicaea ‘in the manner befitting such a noble lord’. The speed with which Robert appears to have managed this journey is rather suspicious. He did not leave Normandy until late 1034/early 1035 and yet he managed to travel to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and return as far as Nicaea, which is less than 100km to the east of Constantinople, within six months. It would have been impressive if he had made even the one-way journey to Jerusalem in so short a time. It is, therefore, possible that Robert actually died en route to Jerusalem and that the stories told about him in Palestine are a later fabrication. Indeed, one story tells that he was about to leave Constantinople on his journey to the Holy Land ‘when an illness, which lasted for two weeks or more, overtook him’ and he was then carried shoulder-high on a bier by Saracens. Could it be that it was really at this point that Robert died and not on the return journey? In 1086 William the Conqueror arranged for his father’s remains to be returned to Normandy, but the king died before the mission was completed and, consequently, Duke Robert was reburied in Apulia by the envoys that had been charged with returning the duke’s remains to the duchy. The death of Duke Robert in 1035 meant that his young son William’s life was about to be transformed as was that of his half-brother, Odo.

  9 Duke Robert at the gates of Jerusalem from a nineteenth-century drawing. Having fallen ill en route the duke is being carried on a stretcher towards the Holy City; because several of the porters were black, Robert is reported to have joked that he was being carried to paradise by devils. Lacroix, P., Vie militaire et religeuse du Moyen Age, 1877

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  • The Boy Bishop and Bayeux •

  O do was appointed Bishop of Bayeux on the death of Abbot Hugh in 1049/50, when he was somewhere between the ages of 14 and 19 (dependent on his birthday). In any case, he was well below the canonically required age of 30 for promotion to a bishopric. There is no record of where the ordination occurred, but since all other episcopal consecrations were held in Rouen, it is reasonable to assume it was in the ducal capital. It has been suggested that it might have coincided with Duke William’s re-entry into Rouen, following the suppression of an uprising there early in 1050. Odo’s appointment was part of a deliberate policy to extend ducal influence in western Normandy after the Battle of Val-ès-Dunes (1047); it would, therefore, also have been appropriate to hold the ordination in Bayeux, which itself had recently been in revolt against William.

  Despite the great secular positions he was to acquire and important roles he performed, Odo was to remain Bishop of Bayeux until his death almost fifty years later. Odo’s investment as bishop at such a young age was of course entirely due to William, but as none of the contemporary observers raised any objection to Odo’s youthful appointment we can conclude that he was thought suitable for the position (Bates 1975). William of Poitiers claimed that Odo was elected to Bayeux because of his exemplary ‘probity’, but such politically motivated appointments for the close male kinsmen of Norman dukes were common. Although Odo appears as a witness to charters from the early 1050s onwards, it is unlikely that he had much initial impact on the diocese, and he was presumably being politically steered by the duke and his counsellors.

  It is possible that William had identified character traits in Odo which marked him out as a future baron/bishop – characteristics that meant that he would support the duke and extend ducal authority in the Bessin but that he would also create a strong bishopric in the duke’s image; Odo’s success in developing Bayeux financially, architecturally, intellectually and spiritually was a reflection not only of the bishop, but of the duke as well. The ties of ducal authority were strengthened as a result of Odo’s achievements and it was, therefore, an appointment which paid dividends at many levels, at least until the early 1080s.

  • Duke William and the Church •

  At about the same time as Odo’s appointment, William was stamping his authority on the Norman Church with other family appointments. Several of Odo’s contemporary prelates were part of or closely linked to the ducal family. William’s cousin Hugh d’Eu had already been made Bishop of Lisieux (c. 1046), while Geoffrey de Mowbray, who may also have been a distant relation, became Bishop of Coutances (2 March 1049). These men were chosen for their loyalty and played a fundamentally important role in the government of the duchy. William’s grandfather Richard I had appointed Hugh, son of his own half-brother, Count Rodulf, to the See of Bayeux (1015–49). Another of Count Rodulf’s sons, John, became Bishop of Avranches in 1060 and subsequently Archbishop of Rouen. Before 1055 the See of Rouen was held by two sons of Norman dukes, Robert (990–1037) and Mauger (1037–55).

  However, William needed bishops who were closer to him both in age and in disposition than the old guard. His appointment of men such as Odo and Geoffrey of Coutances created a Norman Church with strong ties to William. By 1066 William’s control of the Norman Church was virtually complete; the Norman bishops attended synods over which he presided and they acknowledged their obligation to support him militarily by providing him with soldiers from their estates. The two muscular bishops Odo of Bayeux and Geoffrey of Coutances were to dominate the Norman Church for a generation. They owed their positions and their allegiance directly to William, giving them the confidence and backing to re-establish episcopal authority within their dioceses and form the backbone of a revitalised Church in the duchy. Orderic Vitalis brings home the
reality of William’s power when he writes, ‘If any monk from his duchy dared to bring a plea against him [Duke William], he would ignore his cloth and hang him from the top of the highest oak-tree in the wood near by’ (OV, iii, 94).

  William’s other half-brother, Robert, was also given a position of authority, but probably not until the late 1050s, when he became Count of Mortain. Mortain lay on the frontier with both Brittany and Bellême and close to the ecclesiastical centres of Avranches and Coutances. William of Jumièges thought these appointments reflected William’s desire ‘to raise up the humble kindred of his mother’ while ‘he plucked down the proud kindred of his father’. Although some chroniclers threw doubt on Robert’s abilities, William had trusted him with the important task of protecting a volatile border of the expanded duchy, where he built castles along the south-western Norman frontier with Anjou at Mortain, St Hilaire-du-Harcouët, le Teilleul and Tinchebrai. Robert created markets and probably laid out new towns at these locations – a policy that was designed to combine commercial prosperity with security, and a strategy which Robert and other Normans were to bring over to England with great effect after 1066. Robert strengthened his position further through his marriages to Matilda, daughter of Roger de Montgomery, and then to Mabel de Bellême.

  • Odo the Ecclesiastical Lord •

  Although Odo was appointed as an ecclesiastical lord, he along with the other bishops played a role in the governance of Normandy and was expected to act at ducal level as well in his own diocese. Bishops played an overtly political role and provided a link between the faithful and the duke. His presence was required at court and at synods and he had to be ready with advice and support for the duke (and later, king), both of a practical and of a financial nature. One of Odo’s first recorded acts as bishop was to witness a charter of St Evroul on 25 September 1050. He was also present at ecclesiastical councils held at Rouen in 1055, 1061 and 1063. Odo’s importance in pre-Conquest government is demonstrated by his prominence among the witnesses to these charters, and it is clear from his subsequent role in the Conquest of England and his eminent position in the government of England that he had already reached a position of considerable power and influence by 1066.

  As a major landholder, the Bishop of Bayeux was expected to provide knights for William’s various military activities. The military role of the bishops was as important as their pastoral obligations and the bishop’s knights owed specific obligations to their lord. These military obligations became particularly important at the time of the Conquest, when the duke needed to know what resources he could call upon both for the invasion of England and for the defence of the duchy in his absence. In a survey of the Bishop of Bayeux’s lands of 1133 the extent to which Odo built up his military complement is made clear. The bishop was obliged to provide twenty knights to the duke from his episcopal estates; but in fact, the diocesan estates brought the service of 120 knights, six times the number required. Although Odo did campaign on occasion, both in England and in Normandy, and most notably at the Battle of Hastings, this number was far in excess of his normal needs. There was a financial gain to be had from such an arrangement in the form of feudal revenues. The bishop was entitled to 20s per knight when he went to Rome on Church business, whenever it was necessary to repair the cathedral, or when it was necessary to repair episcopal buildings damaged by fire. He also received what were known as reliefs; for instance, when a vassal died without heirs his property would revert to the bishop, or if a minor inherited an estate the bishop could take the revenues until the heir came of age. Such reliefs were valued at £15 per knight, although later bishops had some difficulty in collecting reliefs and had to depend upon the duke for help (Gleason 1936, 48–51).

  The bishop’s military vassals included nobles such as the vicomte of the Bessin. Below these were the ‘vavassors’, some of whom performed a modified form of military service, while others were little more than peasants. It was this category of vassal that ‘undoubtedly formed the main basis of the bishop’s wealth’ (Gleason, 53). Several of Odo’s tenants, such as Wadard and Vital, went with him to England and continued to benefit from the bishop’s support. Odo clearly enjoyed having people around him who were dependent upon him, both secular and clerical.

  Although there were such financial implications for the bishop to have land held under military tenure, Bates has argued that the reasons are more likely to have been political (Bates 1970). Land held in this way was probably part of a ducal policy to reward the bishops with land whose holders could be used for the duke’s own ends and to maintain a strong ducal presence in the Bessin. Such arrangements meant that the bishops would have felt that it was much more unlikely that the duke or anyone else would seize land that was held by military tenure.

  Although Odo belonged to a new generation of Norman bishops, he was not associated with the ecclesiastical reform movement which was gathering pace, particularly after the Conquest of England. The bishop was expected to enhance his cathedral by increasing its wealth and prestige. The prelate’s role was to glorify the cathedral and to provide a strong influential figurehead. Odo and his contemporaries built great basilicas, assembled large bodies of clergy and enthusiastically collected saints’ relics, but they were not expected to undertake pastoral work or even to provide spiritual leadership. Gilbert Maminot, Bishop of Lisieux (1077–1101), a devotee of hunting and gambling, enjoyed a life of ease and luxury, but there was no suggestion that he was a bad bishop (Bates 1970, 44).

  Later, William did appoint men of learning and who had received an adequate ecclesiastical training, to high church offices. As such, these prelates were much closer in temperament to the ideal set out by the English bishop Wulfstan of York and Worcester (d. 1023), who declared in rhythmic prose, that a bishop should think hard on peace and concord, how he might further Christendom and reduce heathenism. He followed this with a stream of observations, how a bishop should look after his household, be not too eager for song or hounds or hawks nor worldly wealth, should live in seemly fashion, be prepared to turn the other cheek, to excommunicate only for great causes, should see to book learning and proper instruction for his household, exercise his talents in good handicrafts and see that his household was kept busy in the same way, keep his hours properly and instruct men in the folkmoots with godly instruction (Loyn 1991).

  • Bishop Odo’s Wealth •

  Odo’s appointment brought considerable power and wealth to the young bishop. Bayeux was a rich diocese; work on its reorganisation had begun under his predecessor Bishop Hugh and estates lost during the period of Viking incursions had been partly recovered. The income from diocesan holdings was large. Bayeux was second only to Rouen in both status and wealth in Normandy, and Odo acquired a reputation for gathering wealth. Odo’s ‘remarkable and outrageous’ career had resulted in great wealth and a claim by Marbod of Rennes that Bayeux was so rich it could have supported three bishops. Before 1066 the bishop is known to have possessed houses in Caen, Lisieux and Rouen as well as the bishop’s palace in Bayeux (Bates 1982, 130–1). He also had a castle at Neuilly l’Évêque and fortified manors at Douvres-la-Délivrande and Cambremer (Casset 2007, 243–50, 279–91, 363–406).

  The bishop also had urban property held by burgenses or burgesses. These were merchants, traders and craftsmen who lived in towns or in recently created bourgs – satellite urban centres attached to places like Caen, where the Bishop of Bayeux had tenants living in the duke’s bourg, or Bayeux, where the bishop had his own bourg. Such burgesses were free of dues payable at the bishop’s markets and fairs. Their raison d’être was to develop commercial activity through markets, from which the bishop would receive tolls from those coming to buy and sell from outside. Tolls were levied on goods bought and sold at the markets and fairs of the bishopric. Markets were held in the churchyards of many parishes, while important episcopal fairs were located at Neuilly, Isigny, St Clair (Manche), Tilly, Plessis, St Vigor and Cambremer. At the great fairs of Neuilly
and Isigny, barons, knights, clerics and officials of the king and bishop were exempted from tolls as well as specified individuals, such as the gatekeeper of the bishop’s castle of Neuilly and an unnamed onion seller, who provided the bishop with a supply of garlic. The value to the bishops of such tolls is demonstrated by the vigour with which they opposed attempts to establish rival markets. In the twelfth century one bishop of Bayeux even appealed to the pope in an effort to stop the establishment of a new market at Crèvecoeur, sited near to his market at Cambremer, but in the neighbouring diocese of Lisieux (Gleason, 63).

  It is not known if Odo was as fond of hunting as his half-brother William, who, it was said by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ‘loved the deer as though he were their father’, but he did have his own deer parks at Bayeux and Neuilly and he created others at Wickhambreux, to the north-east of Canterbury, and at Eridge Park in Sussex. Theoretically, bishops were canonically prohibited from hunting, but as it was an integral component of the aristocratic lifestyle enjoyed by men like Odo it seems probably that he did participate in hunting parties. We know that the Bishop of Lisieux was an enthusiastic hunter and that Geoffrey of Coutances imported deer from England for his Norman parks. The bishops of Bayeux also had their own ‘forests’. As with the royal forests in England, hunting was restricted to the bishop or his nominees, and the taking of deer, timber and other items was strictly controlled. New enclosures were still being made in the eleventh century, when areas of former woodland were taken over for partial cultivation. The forest of Neuilly, for instance, once covered a considerably larger area than it did during the twelfth century and had originally been joined with the Cérisy forest to the south-east. Those tenants who pastured their animals within the limits of the forest were charged a fee called a herbagium. The administration of the diocesan forests was in the hands of foresters who collected forest revenues and policed illegal hunting.