The Man Behind the Bayeux Tapestry

by Trevor Rowley

  50 Twelfth-century illustration of a crusader taking the cross from a bishop.

  In April 1096 Abbot Gerento of St Bénigne in Dijon, acting as papal legate, undertook a mission to England to negotiate terms for Robert’s surrender of Normandy to his brother for the duration of the expedition. The duke was to receive 10,000 silver marks from William Rufus for ‘mortgaging’ the duchy, which was used to equip and sustain his large military entourage. By all accounts, the king did not find it easy to raise this sum and was obliged to levy a tax of 4s on the hide in England. Many abbeys, which had suffered in the decade after the Conquest, had difficulty in finding the sums demanded by William Rufus and were ordered to melt down their treasures to meet the king’s demands. The Worcester Chronicle observed that, ‘Bishops, abbots, abbesses broke up their silver ornaments, earls, barons, sheriffs despoiled their knights and villeins and gave the king a large sum of gold and silver.’ It took until September for the king to collect the money, when William went in person to deliver sixty-seven barrels of bullion coin to Rouen and formally take possession of Normandy (Aird, 162).

  • The Bishop Counts the Cost •

  It would have been inconceivable for Odo to have remained in Normandy without the protection of Duke Robert. Normandy was to be under the direct rule of William Rufus, against whom he had rebelled in 1088 and who had developed a particular antipathy towards his uncle. Orderic Vitalis reported that the enmity between the bishop and the king was such that mediators were unable to bring about reconciliation (OV, v, 208–9). Added to this, just to the west of Bayeux and the Bessin was Count Henry of the Cotentin, whom he had imprisoned in Rouen; the potential treatment of the old bishop at Henry’s hands would have been as bad if not worse than at his brother’s. He knew that under the new regime it would just be a matter of time before he would be imprisoned or even executed. It is possible that Odo always intended to leave Robert’s contingent in Italy and not continue on to Jerusalem, possibly with the hope of taking up a position in Norman Sicily. Alternatively, the bishop might already have been ailing and known that he would not return from the journey. Perhaps, he reasoned, it would be better to die a free man on a holy mission than a prisoner in the Tower of Rouen once more. If anyone was using the crusade as an opportunity to escape his troubles in Normandy, it was not Duke Robert, but Bishop Odo.

  The cost of mounting a campaign to travel to the Levant was formidable, even for a minor baron; the duke could not have managed it without the English king’s money. Odo was still wealthy, but his loss of revenues from England would have diminished his resources considerably and he would probably have had to invest most of his surviving wealth in the expedition. Costs included the maintenance of a large number of horses, not only mounts, but also warhorses, pack animals and draught teams, all of whom had to be equipped and fed. Only a limited amount of fodder could be carried, so the crusaders needed money to buy supplies along their route. Each knight would have taken up to three grooms and a squire and the duke’s contingent would have included cooks, huntsmen and falconers. There were also foot soldiers, ordinary pilgrims using the army as a shield, wives, children and many other non-combatants. There would be expensive ordnance – armoury, tools and spare horse equipment. It has been estimated that the leading crusaders spent four times their annual income equipping their contingents.

  There were other considerable expenses on the way to Jerusalem. The Bishop of Passau, Wolfger, when travelling along the pilgrimage route to Rome a century later, paid 30s for a cook, 23s for bread and 20s for wine during an overnight stop for his contingent at Viterbo. He also paid 35s for grass and fodder for his horses (Birch 1998, 66). Odo, like Wolfger, was an important and wealthy prelate and would have obtained comfortable and expensive lodgings whenever they were available. Odo would have taken a much larger contingent with him on crusade than Wolfger, so his expenses would have been correspondingly that much greater. It is, therefore, probable that Odo took as much of his treasure as could be carried; if he had left it in Normandy it is unlikely that it would have remained untouched by his nephews for very long.

  In the months before the Norman contingent left, Odo set about tidying up some loose ends, aware that he was unlikely to return. During his time in prison his abbey of St Vigor in Bayeux had been disbanded, mainly because the abbot had left to serve Pope Gregory in Rome, and several of the monks had returned to Mont-Saint-Michel, from where they had originally come. Odo had restored the order in the early 1090s, but he knew that the abbey remained vulnerable as he was so closely associated with it. Therefore, in order to guarantee St Vigor’s future, he bestowed it as a priory to the abbey of St Bénigne in Dijon, an establishment that had been closely linked to the revival of the Norman Church early in the eleventh century. William of Volpiano had been the abbot from Dijon who had been brought to Fécamp with a number of monks by Duke Richard II in order to reform the monastic life of the duchy. St Bénigne had been granted property by earlier dukes and had a considerable number of well-managed priories. Odo hoped that St Vigor would eventually become a daughter abbey of Dijon, as provision was made for the election of an abbot. It is not known if Odo made any special arrangements for the protection of his cathedral, apart from invoking the papal sanction against anyone damaging property belonging to crusaders. The bishop had created a healthy chapter which, despite some problems, had managed to cope with Odo’s long absences in the past.

  In the event, the consequences of Odo’s crusade and consequent death were to prove disastrous for his diocese. His successor as Bishop of Bayeux was Turold d’Envermeu (c. 1099–1107), who appears to have been unsuitable in almost every way and, consequently, ‘his episcopate is remarkable only for the series of disasters that afflicted the diocese of Bayeux during his reign’ (Allen 2009, 161). Turold’s power base was in Upper Normandy around Dieppe, remote from the Bessin, and he obviously lacked the skills to hold together the diocesan structure he inherited from Odo. Diocesan lands were subject to plunder, mainly by Robert fitz Hamon, lord of Creully and Torigni, who was captured by the citizens of Bayeux in 1105, which provoked Henry I into besieging and burning the city.

  Odo’s own crusader party included Arnulf of Hesdin, William son of Ranulf, Vicomte of the Bessin and William Columbiers. The only other noble from the Bessin recorded as joining the crusade was William of Bayeux, the great-nephew of Hugh of Avranches, Earl of Chester (Riley-Smith 1997, map 2). Indeed, the number of Norman noblemen joining the crusade was surprisingly small, particularly when compared with the large number of nobles who came from territories adjacent to Normandy. Among Robert’s entourage were old friends, whose number included Ivo and Aubrey de Grandmesnil, as well as men who had opposed the duke, such as Gerard de Gournay and Walter de St Valery. There were many from outside the duchy in the Norman contingent, including men from Brittany, Maine, Artois and Perche. There were also those from within the duchy who, like Odo, were fearful of their future under William Rufus, and those that stayed behind were perhaps equally fearful of leaving their lands unguarded.

  Odo would have travelled in style, as befitted a king’s brother, bishop, and former earl and regent, but perhaps not as grandly as Thomas Becket did on a mission from London to Paris in 1158. Becket was travelling as an envoy for King Henry II with a retinue that was designed to impress. It consisted of 200 horsemen:

  Knights, clerks, stewards, squires and the sons of nobles. There were eight great wagons, each drawn by five great horses; two of the wagons carried top-quality beer. The chapel, chamber, store and kitchen each had their own wagon, while the remainder carried food, drink, tapestries and bedding. Twelve packhorses bore the chancellor’s gold and silver plate, his money, clothes and the sacred vessels and books for the chapel. Tied to each wagon was a hunting dog and sitting on the back of each packhorse was a monkey. As the retinue entered the villages and fortresses of Northern France, the two hundred and fifty footmen in the van sang English songs. The hounds, hunt servants and wagons followed, then
the packhorses, squires and their masters’ shields, horses and falcons, then the household officials, followed by knights and clerks, riding two by two, and finally Becket and his close friends.

  (William fitz Stephen’s description in Barlow 1990, 56–58)

  • The Journey to Rome •

  Having raised the necessary funds for Duke Robert, Abbot Gerento and Hugh de Flavigny returned to Normandy. They met with Odo and Robert in Bayeux before travelling to Rouen together in the summer of 1096. It had been agreed that the crusading armies should be ready to depart on the Feast of the Assumption (15 August), but the Norman contingent left later than the others because of the delay in the arrival of the money from England. As soon as it did arrive in mid-September 1096, Robert started off promptly, anxious to avoid the fate of Aelfsige, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was frozen to death in the Alps whilst on his way to Rome to collect his pallium in AD 959 (Birch 1998, 56). For the first section of the journey the Normans were accompanied by the papal legate and chronicler Hugh de Flavigny. It is estimated that Robert’s contingent consisted of as many as 1,000 knights and 6,000 foot soldiers, together with an indeterminate number of followers, thus forming one of the largest of the crusader armies (France 2001, 91–2). At Pontarlier in the Jura the Normans joined company with the contingents of the counts of Flanders, Blois-Chartres and Vermandois. Stephen of Blois was married to Robert’s sister Adela, who had remained behind to administer his lands. Stephen was accompanied by the priest Fulcher of Chartres, who later wrote a chronicle of the expedition. The cavalcade, probably now numbering well over 10,000, then headed into the Alps along the Via Francigena. This was a well-established pilgrim road, which crossed the Alps by way of the Great St Bernard Pass, with many shrines, monasteries and hospices along the route providing accommodation and help, particularly for those that could pay for it. A century later, Wolfger, Bishop of Passau reported that the pilgrim hospices were able to provide more than meals, a bed for the night and stables. At many, medicines could be obtained, and some seem to have been able to offer a bath and a laundry service (Birch 1998, 61). Leaving the Alps by way of the old Roman town of Aosta, the road passed through Pavia and Piacenza; at Parma the road turned southwards to cross the Apennines. A convoy of this size would do well to travel 25km in a day, particularly across the Alps and Apennines. The Norman crusaders had, therefore, made good progress to arrive at the ancient Tuscan city of Lucca by mid-November, a distance of about 1,000km from Rouen.

  51 Odo’s final journey to Palermo.

  Lucca was an important pilgrimage centre in its own right, where the cathedral housed the famous Volto Santo, a crucifix ‘in the image of God Himself’, which was set on a huge wooden cross and, reputedly, spoke (Birch 1998, 54). The duke’s entourage had a meeting with Pope Urban II who was also on his way to Rome. The papacy was still divided, despite the crusades, and parts of Rome were in the possession of the obstinate anti-pope Clement III. Before they left, the pope gave his personal blessing to the leaders of the crusade. From Lucca it was a relatively easy journey for the northern warriors, on a straight road down to Rome. The crusaders arrived at the gates of Rome in the second week of December, where they found that St Peter’s on Vatican Hill, outside Rome’s city walls at that time, was in the hands of the supporters of the anti-pope. Fulcher was shocked by their greeting:

  And when we had entered the church of St Peter, we found before the altar men of Wibert [Clement III] the false pope, who with swords in their hands wrongly snatched the offerings placed on the altar. Others ran up and down on the timbers of the church itself and threw down stones at us as we were prostrate praying. For whenever they saw someone faithful to Urban, they immediately longed to massacre them. In one part of the vault of the church were Lord Urban’s men, who carefully guarded it loyally for him, and resisted their adversaries as best they could. We were sorely troubled when we saw such a great disgrace …

  (Lack, 85)

  At this stage, a number of Robert’s contingent, perhaps disillusioned by their sour welcome in Rome, decided to return to Normandy. The remainder of the contingent reassembled and moved south-eastwards to the great abbey at Monte Cassino, before crossing the Apennines once again. They were the guests of their fellow Normans in this part of Italy, now under the rule of Roger Borsa, Duke of Apulia and son of Robert Guiscard. Roger ‘welcomed the duke of Normandy with his companions as his natural lord and provided liberally for all his needs’ (Aird, 169). They probably met with him in the new capital of Salerno, where a grand new cathedral was being erected. They then turned east towards the Adriatic coast, but their progress to the Holy Land was delayed when they reached Bari, the main embarkation port for the crusaders. Robert’s late departure from Normandy meant that he was too late to commission ships to cross the Adriatic, a sea that was notoriously dangerous in winter. Shipping throughout much of the Mediterranean came to a halt between November and March because of potentially treacherous storms. Contingents sailing from Bari earlier in the year had been involved in heavy losses of transport ships, and local sailors were unwilling to participate in another winter crossing, particularly with such a large consignment. Despite the dangers, Robert of Flanders decided to leave the Normans and risk the crossing with a smaller detachment. Count Roger helped Robert secure ships, in which he was able to sail to Durazzo (Dyrrachium) in modern Albania without incident. Duke Robert and Stephen of Blois elected to spend the winter in Calabria as the guests of Count Roger. Despite their warm reception, it was reported that the Normans ‘spent the harsh winter weather’ in Calabria (Lack, 88). Here, Duke Robert met Sibyl, daughter of Count Geoffrey of Conversano and granddaughter of Robert Guiscard, whom he was to marry on his return from the crusade in 1099/1100. Orderic Vitalis reported that Robert ‘fell in love’ with Sibyl and that ‘she was truly good in character’ (Aird, 191), but, although it may well have been an unusual contemporary example of a love match, Robert succeeded in raising sufficient funds as a result of the marriage to redeem Normandy from William Rufus. In effect, he had achieved part of his crusading objective before even leaving Italy.

  • Odo’s Final Journey •

  Sometime towards the end of 1096 Odo left the Crusaders and probably crossed the Tyrrhenian Sea by boat to Sicily, to attend Count Roger I’s splendid cosmopolitan court in Palermo. In order to fit the known dates he would have had to leave the rest of the Norman group at Rome or Capua. Possibly, he took a boat directly from Rome’s medieval port at Portus on the Tiber estuary. Alternatively, if he travelled by land, he would have followed the Appian Way to Capua and then the Via Popilia to Reggio, the short sea crossing to Messina and finally along the north coast of Sicily to Palermo. It is unlikely that his real motives for going to Sicily will ever be known. Palermo had not long been taken from the Muslims and he may out of curiosity have wanted to see a city that had recently been freed from the control of the infidel, particularly if he felt that there was little chance of his seeing Jerusalem. If, indeed, he was already sick he could have believed that the Arabic and Greek doctors of Palermo, whose reputation would have reached Normandy, might have been able to cure him.

  52 Plan of Palermo in the mid-seventeenth century. The city was still contained within its medieval walls. The Norman palace lies at the top of the walled area; the cathedral is in the centre. The Moslem area lay to the left of the harbour. Bleau, J., Amsterdam, 1663 in Chirco, 1992