Eudes de Bayeux / Odo of Conteville (Normandy, c.1036 - Palermo, 1097)

As the son of Herleva of Falaise and Herluin of Conteville, and thus a half-brother of William the Conqueror, Odo was appointed by the latter to the bishopric of Bayeux in 1049. His dignity did not prevent him from assuming a position among the most important barons of the duchy. He provided the Duke with a large contingent for his conquest of England and fought in person at Hastings (1066). He was invested with the County of Kent and undertook the construction of Dover castle. He represented the authority of the Duke-King in his absence and took part in the suppression of several uprisings - in Norfolk against Ralf de Gael in 1074, and in Northumbria against the Scottish King, Malcolm Canmore, in 1079. Odo enforced the authority of the Norman conquerors without pity, and amassed wealth at the expense of the vanquished, asserting his independence from the authority of the Duke-King. In 1082, on the death of Pope Gregory VII, Odo was accused of planning to raise a private army for an expedition to Italy with a view to taking the papal tiara for himself. William had him arrested (1082) and kept him prisoner in Rouen until his death (1087). In the dispute between the sons of William, Odo took the side of Robert Curthose whom he hoped to dominate. William Rufus confiscated his lands and banished him to England. Odo again won himself renown by agreeing to marry the French King Philip I to Bertrade of Montfort, the kidnapped wife of the Count of Anjou, and, presiding at the Council of Clermont, which was called to pronounce judgement on this scandal (Nov. 1095), he committed himself to a crusade in the company of Robert Curthose. He died en route to the Holy Land in 1097 and was buried in Palermo. We owe to him the completion of the first Romanesque cathedral in Bayeux (which was destroyed by fire in 1105), the foundation of the abbey of Troarn (1059) and the Bayeux Tapestry, which was probably made by craftspeople in his County of Kent in c.1077.

Bibliography :

- François Neveux. - La Normandie des ducs aux rois, Xe-XIIe s. - Rennes : Ouest-France, 1998.
- Les évêques normands du XIe s. : actes du colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle (30 septembre - 3 octobre 1993), publiés sous la dir. de Pierre Bouet et François Neveux. - Caen : Presses Universitaires de Caen, 1993.
- Michel de Boüard. - Guillaume le Conquérant. - Paris : Fayard, 1984.