The Man Behind the Bayeux Tapestry

by Trevor Rowley

  In England, William Rufus had not forgotten about the 1088 rising and, according to Orderic Vitalis, developed a bitter grudge against his uncle Odo for his prominent role in the rebellion. He also continued to take a keen interest in Norman affairs, with a view to turning the tables on his brother and re-uniting the duchy with England under his rule. He summoned his barons to Winchester in 1090 and explained why he needed to intervene in Normandy. Firstly, it was to avenge himself on his brother the duke and the treacherous Bishop Odo and secondly, to save the Norman Church from the anarchy that prevailed in the duchy. It was a neat reversal of his father’s justification to invade England to save the English Church in 1066. With these ends in mind, the king bought the support of several powerful barons in Upper Normandy, some of whom had land on either side of the Channel. These lords prepared for civil war by garrisoning their castles with mercenaries paid for by the king. In the west, Henry was also placing his castles on a war footing, with the intention of making the Cotentin independent of Normandy.

  Duke Robert seemed to be facing extinction when King William instigated a riot in Rouen in October 1090. The merchants of the city were suffering as a result of the general anarchy and also because of the loss of their direct link with London markets and traders. The leader was the wealthiest Rouen merchant, Conan, son of Gilbert Pilatus, supported by a contingent of royalist mercenaries. However, on this occasion Count Henry and Robert of Bellême joined forces with the duke. William had miscalculated; Henry and Robert preferred a weak duke as an overlord, rather than a strong king, and were prepared to help Duke Robert in return for the normal spoils of war. Their intervention was critical; the uprising was suppressed and savage reprisals were inflicted on the townspeople by the ducal soldiers. Henry himself is said to have thrown Conan to his death from the top of the Tower where Odo had been imprisoned (Barlow 1983, 274–5).

  This setback did not deter the king, who early in 1091 launched an invasion of Normandy with a view to annexing the duchy. In the event there was very little fighting, possibly because William was worried that the duke would ally himself with the French king, Philip I, and thus he would be presented with a much more serious adversary. Robert and his brother signed a formal treaty at Rouen in February 1091, where the duke agreed to hand over the county of Eu, which the king already effectively occupied, and the abbeys of Fécamp, Mont-Saint-Michel and Cherbourg. These were significant concessions, but in return the king gave Robert substantial but unspecified gifts, probably treasures and money as well as estates in England. The most significant part of the treaty was that the king and the duke made each other heir to each other’s lands, thus removing from Henry any hope of inheriting either of their titles while one of his brothers lived (Aird, 140). Ironically, the peace negotiations to settle relations between the duke and the king seem to have been orchestrated by Odo’s former rival, the banished William of St Calais, Bishop of Durham, whose skilful diplomacy seems to have earned him reconciliation with William Rufus.

  There followed a short period of co-operation between William and Robert. They joined forces to subdue Maine once again, but their brother Henry was now causing trouble in the west, probably in response to the unpalatable contents of the Rouen treaty. Therefore, the king and duke marched westwards and besieged Henry, who had taken refuge at Mont-Saint-Michel. Eventually, Henry was allowed to leave and a short-lived truce was established between Henry and Robert. The combined army did not move back to Maine as there were now problems in England and the king accompanied the duke and returned to fight against the Welsh and the Scots. At the end of an inconclusive Welsh campaign and a more successful one against Malcolm III of Scotland, Duke Robert quarrelled with the king and returned to Normandy (Aird, 142–5). Both Robert’s brothers continued to make trouble for him in the duchy between 1093 and 1095, and on at least one other occasion he was obliged to call on the French king for assistance again. There is no indication that Odo played a significant role in the various military campaigns that occupied Duke Robert in this period, although he may have accompanied the duke on an expedition to Maine early in 1094 (Allen 2009, 87–112).

  • The Diocese of Bayeux 1090–95 •

  Bishop Odo was conspicuously absent during these significant events, at least as far as the contemporary historians were concerned. He does not appear either as a counsellor or as a warrior. Some scholars have suggested that Odo grew tired of Robert’s shifting policies, others that the duke had grown to distrust his uncle so much that he no longer asked for his advice. A third explanation is more probable, that Odo was now intent on guarding his own backyard. The bishop must have given up all hope of regaining his title and lands in England; indeed, this had been deliberately left out of the Rouen agreement. Odo may have felt obliged to concentrate on protecting the Bessin during such troubled times. His nephew Henry seems to have ravaged the region in early 1091 and would have been a constant threat to the bishop and his estates.

  Odo would have appreciated by this stage that his only real tangible legacy would be the Church he had enriched so much. He turned his attention to securing the resources of the cathedral and to trying to nurture a monastery in Bayeux worthy of his memory. The diocese had been subject to the pillaging of abbeys and churches by Odo’s own men during his imprisonment and preoccupation with ducal politics. With these issues in mind, Odo drew up a legal framework that governed his relations with the most senior secular lord in his diocese, Ranulph, Vicomte of the Bessin. This agreement not only regulated their relations with each other, but also made explicit their loyalty to the duke. The agreement with Ranulph was only concluded by the bishop making considerable concessions, including the giving of hostages. On another occasion he demanded a written declaration of obedience from Arnulf, the new abbot of Troarn; there is also a record that they met at one of the bishop’s houses in Caen to discuss a dispute relating to the church at Dives-sur-Mer. Such micro diplomacy must have seemed trivial to the bishop, compared to the elevated heights of Anglo-Norman politics where he was used to operating, but it was desperately important for him as he found his powers increasingly restricted. These agreements, together with the 1091 charter confirming the Bayeux diocesan estates, suggest that Odo was concerned that his diminishing power base was going to disappear altogether. There may also have been an element of self-preservation in Odo’s failure to appear alongside Duke Robert during many of his military engagements in the 1090s. Robert’s main adversaries were his brothers William and Henry, both of whom held grudges against the bishop. Odo might have avoided direct military action against them because of the fear that they would seek him out or that he would be betrayed by one of Robert’s knights for the huge price that he would have commanded. If captured, the best he could have hoped for would be to spend the rest of his days in prison and this time he knew that there would be no hope of a reprieve.

  • The Abbey of St Vigor •

  The records of Odo’s activities between 1090 and 1095 are primarily concerned with Church affairs in the Bessin, although he does appear in the ducal entourage on a number of occasions, for instance, at Bonneville-sur-Touques in December 1093, but he rarely strayed far outside Lower Normandy. Earlier, in the summer of 1091, he attended a council to elect a new bishop of Sées; he also witnessed an act for the abbey of Jumièges issued at Lisieux by the duke in December 1093. In 1094 he witnessed charters for the abbey of La Trinité de Vendôme on the River Loir. In the early 1090s Odo raised funds to restore a monastic order at his abbey of St Vigor. During his imprisonment the abbey had been closed and partly destroyed. The abbot, Robert de Tombelaine, a notable musicologist appointed by Odo, had left for Rome in 1082 to serve Pope Gregory VII. Before his imprisonment Odo had reinstated a series of annual processions between St Vigor and Bayeux Cathedral, including one held on Ash Wednesday for penitent clergy. At the start of this ceremony the bishop, in full regalia, blessed the relics and then absolved all the penitents in front of the high altar. After the service the procession
moved out to St Vigor for prayer and then returned to the cathedral. Further processions took place on Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent, visiting the parish churches in the vicinity of the city. At Whitsuntide every parish priest was required to lead his flock to the cathedral, where each householder had to bring one pennyworth of wax for lighting the church. It appears that processions were made from places such as Isigny, and even St Stephen’s in Caen was not exempt from this obligation (Bates 1970, 158). The processions were carefully orchestrated, possibly by Abbot Tombelaine, and included complex arrangements of liturgical chant.

  Odo also decreed that he and all subsequent bishops and canons of Bayeux should be buried at St Vigor; in the event, only Bishop Richard III (d. 1142) was interred there. Although St Vigor had been abandoned by 1087, not all the monks had dispersed. Richard de Cremelle had managed to keep some of them together in a house in the town, and he was presumably created prior of the re-created monastery after Odo’s release.

  • Endgame •

  The early 1090s must have been a melancholy time for the aging bishop. Several men, with whom he had worked closely in building a powerful Duchy of Normandy and conquering and colonising England, died. On 3 February 1093 Odo attended the funeral of his old associate and fellow prelate Geoffrey of Mowbray, Bishop of Coutances. It is not known if the two bishops were close – probably not – but they did share memories of momentous occasions. He and Geoffrey had been together during the Conquest of England, more than a quarter of a century earlier, and in the abortive coup of 1088, just five years before. In many respects, Geoffrey’s career ran parallel to that of Odo. He had been an energetic reforming bishop in Normandy before the Conquest, and he had contributed ships to the invasion fleet and participated at Hastings. After the coronation he was richly rewarded with lands, particularly in south-western England. He appears as a military commander suppressing English rebellions and as a judge, notably, at Odo’s suit on Penenden Heath. He even joined insurrections against the monarchy, as in 1088 against William II, but he never quite reached the heights of achievement or the depths of ignominy which characterised Odo’s life. Orderic Vitalis observed that Geoffrey was more skilled in teaching knights in hauberks to fight than clerks in vestments to sing psalms, but, like Odo, he was never accused of neglecting his duties as a bishop (Le Patourel 1944, 129–61). Geoffrey’s final years were to prove traumatic; although he had been forgiven for his involvement in the 1088 rebellion, he found himself at odds with Count Henry and his barons. Coutances lay within Henry’s territory and, as a consequence, the bishop had to endure the pillaging of his goods, the burning of his houses and the destruction of his parks; furthermore, in 1091 his new cathedral had been partly destroyed by an earth tremor (Allen 2010, 93). In response to such attacks, Geoffrey issued an anathema which ‘blessed the defenders and consolers of the church of Coutances [and] smote its invaders and devastators with an anathema of eternal malediction’ (Tabuteau 1988, 207).

  In July 1094, another of Odo’s contemporaries and close neighbour Roger de Montgomery, died in the abbey which he had founded at Shrewsbury. Roger had been a trusted friend of the Conqueror and had remained in Normandy in 1066 as an advisor to Matilda. He was given the castlery of Arundel and made Earl of Shrewsbury, becoming the most successful of the Marcher barons. He was ambivalent about Odo’s rebellion in 1088 and managed to remain on good terms with William Rufus. At the time of his death he had taken over from Odo as the wealthiest tenant-in-chief in England (Mason, J., 2004–2011).

  In early December 1095 Odo’s brother Robert of Mortain died and was buried at the abbey of Grestain, alongside his father and first wife. Robert had been extremely wealthy and had made generous endowments to Grestain and other Norman foundations. He seems to have remained in Normandy after the 1088 rising, although he, unlike Odo, was pardoned. He was succeeded as count by his son, William, who, on Odo’s death in 1097, attempted unsuccessfully to claim the earldom of Kent. In 1104 William rebelled against Henry I and, as a consequence, lost the Mortain lands in England. At the Battle of Tinchebrai (1106) he fought alongside Duke Robert and lost his Norman lands as well. Reputedly, he died as a Cluniac monk at Bermondsey in 1140 (Allen 2010).

  These two deaths must have brought home to the bishop that he too was reaching the end of his life and that there was little time left for further achievement; his appreciation that time was short would have influenced his decision to join the duke’s contingent on crusade the following year. During this period Odo’s movements were largely restricted to western Normandy, where the duke hardly ever appeared. It is probable that Robert felt confident about the bishop’s ability to maintain ducal order in the Bessin, and it was obvious that he was never as interested in this area of Lower Normandy as in his heartland around Rouen or his southern and eastern borders. Or it could have been that Odo was carefully avoiding contact with King William and Count Henry in the years leading up to his departure on crusade, and that he felt safer on his own territory, where he could rely on his own guards not to betray him.

  49 Stone marking the burial of Odo’s mother, father and brother at the Abbey of Grestain, set up in the early twentieth century.

  9

  • ‘God Wills It’ –

  Odo’s Last Expedition •

  Odo’s final expedition took him to the island of Sicily in the Mediterranean, where he died ostensibly on his way to the First Crusade. Sicily had only recently come under the control of the Normans who, led by one of the Hauteville brothers, Count Roger I, were establishing a new Mediterranean dominion, characterised by its cultural and ethnic diversity. Southern Italy had come to be seen as a potential source of wealth as well as refuge. It was the land of opportunity for the Normans, who came here to acquire land, fortunes or spiritual salvation. It was also the destination of many who had fallen out of favour with the duke or the king, who were exiled or fled here to resume their lives amongst their kinfolk. Sicily was to become the heart of the Norman Empire in the south during the following century.

  • Deus le Volt – God Wills It •

  In November 1095 Bishop Odo, acting as Duke Robert’s emissary, attended the Council of Clermont in the Auvergne. He was accompanied by his fellow Norman Bishops Gilbert of Évreux, nicknamed ‘the Crane’ because of his great height, and Serlo of Sées. He also took his dean and an archdeacon from Bayeux. Odo seems to have obtained a private meeting with the pope, possibly to seek further protection for his abbey of St Vigor, but this was not held until after the main council. Pope Urban II presided over an assembly of 300, largely French, clerics which spent the first nine days discussing issues such as lay investiture, clerical marriage and the Truce of God. Then, on 27 November, the pope made a statement that was to make an impact on the Christian and Islamic worlds alike for centuries to come. He appealed to western Christians to help their brethren in the East against the Saracens. The Byzantine emperor had asked for assistance against the Seljuk Turks, who had taken over parts of Anatolia and were pressing him hard in Constantinople. No mention was made of Jerusalem at this stage, but his appeal was soon interpreted as an invitation ‘to liberate the Church of God which had been trampled underfoot by savage peoples for a long time’ (Lack 2007, 75). Pope Urban II was an accomplished orator, who spoke with fervour, and the response to his call to arms was immediate and emphatic: cries of ‘Deus le Volt’ – ‘God Wills It’ interrupted his speech. The pope had ignited an emotional and spiritual fire that was to spread throughout Christian Europe; soon, tens of thousands were taking the cross with the intention of fighting for Christ and freeing Jerusalem from the heathen Muslims. At this point, Odo may have seen a chance to escape from Normandy, which was becoming increasingly claustrophobic and dangerous for the bishop. Odo would also have recognised that the crusade, like the Conquest of England, was an opportunity to blend spiritual salvation with the possibility of worldly enrichment.

  The pope argued that it was better for Western armies to fight a ‘righteous war’ aga
inst the infidel than to slay each other in the myriad of local disputes which characterised eleventh-century western Christendom, in which Odo had often played his own part. In addition to political conflict leading to hostilities between neighbouring principalities, other forms of aggressive behaviour were commonplace. A contemporary chronicler from the abbey of St-Benoît-sur-Loire described violence, particularly among the young, as endemic and wrote that epicene youths ‘full of themselves in their youthful vigour and enterprise rode the countryside with musicians at the head of their march, charmingly terrorising the neighbourhood in search of money for their pastimes’ (Crouch, 110). Conflict with one or more neighbours was regarded as standard practice in the principalities of France; this was coupled with internal disputes which often resulted in violence. For those that died on crusade there would be absolution and remission of sins, and for those that survived considerable earthly rewards were promised. One of the immediate results in Normandy of the call to arms against the Muslims were anti-Semitic riots in Rouen, one of many such episodes in the cities of Western Europe resulting from the misunderstanding of the fiery preaching of enthusiasts of a Holy War.

  • The Normans Prepare for Holy War Again •

  Following Odo’s return from Clermont, Archbishop William ‘Bona Anima’ of Rouen convened a provincial synod in the ducal capital for February 1096. William had himself been on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem accompanied by the abbot of St Evroul in 1058. Although there was no direct reference to the proposed expedition during the proceedings, the decrees of Clermont were promulgated. Subsequently, edicts issued at Rouen were concerned with establishing peace in Normandy, which was seen as a prerequisite of a Norman contingent joining the crusade. Odo was one of those ‘men of religion’ who, according to Orderic Vitalis, persuaded Duke Robert to take the cross, and in February or March 1096 Robert resolved ‘to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem to make amends to God for his sins’ (OV, v, 26–7). Conditions at home were difficult for Robert; he had failed to gain England, his barons were restless and, in the view of some scholars, Normandy was rapidly falling into anarchy, and so perhaps the answer lay in the Holy Land (Bates 1970, 276). Some scholars have questioned the assumption that Robert was looking for an escape from his troubles at home, pointing to the duke’s piety as another strong motive for his joining the crusade, as ‘it was recognised, even by his critics, that his devotions went beyond the merely formulaic’ (Aird, 2008, 159). The duke’s great-grandfather Richard II had sponsored a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1026 and donated a large sum of money to rebuild the damaged church of the Holy Sepulchre. He may have felt that it was his duty to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather (Duke Robert the Magnificent), whose name he shared, to the Holy Land, this time with the specific purpose of freeing Jerusalem from the infidel. Robert was very conscious of his ancestors’ involvement in the Holy Land and was said to gain courage on the battlefield by recalling ‘his noble lineage’. It seems clear that he was not looking for permanent territorial gains for himself in the East and that it was always his intention to return to Normandy (Aird, 161). We cannot imagine what he thought his brothers William and Henry would be doing to the duchy in his absence; perhaps he believed that as a crusader he was immune from the malignant designs of those who had not taken the cross. Certainly, the Church took responsibility for the protection of pilgrims’ lands and families. In addition to the Cotentin, William Rufus confirmed his brother Henry’s overlordship of the Bessin, excluding Bayeux and Caen, Avranches and Mont-Saint-Michel, while the king maintained direct control of the remainder of the duchy. Robert’s other great problem at home was his lack of money, and stories of the wealth that might be gained by a successful crusading leader may have been an important factor in persuading him to take the cross. Perhaps the duke imagined himself returning to Europe swathed both in silver and in sanctity – a far more powerful ruler than when he had set out.