The Man Behind the Bayeux Tapestry

by Trevor Rowley

  7

  • Odo the Pontiff – A Step Too Far •

  There are several purple patches in Odo’s story, where the chroniclers have left a expanded, but still incomplete, record of events which enables a fuller narrative account of events to be compiled. It is particularly frustrating that there are yawning gaps between these highlights. The two events leading to the bishop’s spectacular fall from grace were covered more fully by the chroniclers than the rest of his life story. In 1082–83 Odo raised a private army and as a consequence was imprisoned by King William, and in 1088 Odo stoked a rebellion against William Rufus and was banished permanently from England. In between, when the bishop was a prisoner in Rouen, the record is blank. The details of the timing and the precise nature of Odo’s crime are uncertain; what is clear, however, is that Odo angered William so profoundly that the king was prepared to imprison his half-brother for the rest of his life. In 1082 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states simply, without amplification, that ‘in this year the king arrested bishop Odo’. Later sources suggest that the arrest might have been made in the following year; if so, it would have been before William’s return to Normandy for Easter 1083. Guibert of Nogent, writing in around 1108, was the first to suggest that Odo was planning to seize the English throne after William’s death (Bates 2004–11, 10). Wace, writing a century later, reported that Odo coveted the English throne and had made covert enquiries about there being any precedent for a bishop becoming king; but long before this an alternative version of the story had emerged, according to which Odo had been attempting to buy the papacy in Rome for himself. Although both of these interpretations would have been consistent with Odo’s reputation as an opportunist, neither is totally satisfactory, and they leave a trail of unanswered questions about the feasibility, timing and logistics of either scheme.

  It was Orderic Vitalis who wrote an ‘inflated and dramatic account’ of how Odo had raised an army in England with the intention of taking it to Rome in order to seize the papacy. Bates articulates the general incredulity that this story tends to generate, ‘The essential difficulty obstructing acceptance of this story is its basic improbability.’ Nevertheless, he continues, ‘It survives in three textually independent versions which have enough in common to suggest a well-founded and widely known source’ (Bates 1975, 15). Orderic claimed that Odo determined on his bid for the Apostolic See on hearing that ‘certain sorcerers [soothsayers] at Rome’ had predicted that a prelate with his name would become pope (OV, vii). By the early 1080s Odo was immensely rich with powers second only to those of the king, but he knew that this was almost certainly the limit of his secular power and that it was virtually impossible for him to become king. He might have wanted to add the metropolitan See of Canterbury to the list of offices he held, but that position was already occupied by his rival, Lanfranc, and in any case would not have given him significantly more power than he already possessed. Odo was wealthy enough to have his own network of spies and informers in Italy and they would have brought him news that the situation was ripe for an opportunistic coup by the right man.

  • The Normans in Italy •

  Odo knew that the Normans had made great acquisitions in Italy and were now the most powerful force in central and southern Italy; he also knew that the papacy was in trouble and at the time dependent on Norman support for its survival. Odo could well have believed that with his wealth, his contacts and his cunning he was that right man. The Conquest of southern Italy by the Normans had mainly been the work of the Hauteville brothers from the Cotentin, with the support of many other minor nobles. Unlike the seizure of the English crown, which had been undertaken by William as a carefully planned military operation, successfully accomplished within the course of a few months, the Norman conquests in the Mediterranean were piecemeal and took over half a century to complete. Furthermore, the Conquest of England was undertaken by Duke William with an army specially recruited for the task, while the Mediterranean lands were won by miscellaneous groups of mercenaries under the control of minor lords often operating independently (Bouet 1994, 11–23).

  The early Norman adventurers established themselves in southern Italy at the expense of local Byzantine lords. In his History of the Normans (c. 1080), the chronicler Amatus of Monte Cassino wrote a colourful description of Norman pilgrims riding ‘through the meadows and gardens – happy and joyful on their horses, cavorting hither and thither’ and added that ‘the citizens of Venosa saw these unfamiliar knights and wondered at them and were afraid’. Amatus also recorded that the Archbishop of Salerno had a vision in which St Matthew proclaimed that ‘this land has been given to the Normans by God’. It was an era of easy alliances and shifting loyalties, but by 1059 Robert Guiscard, one of the Hauteville family, had become Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and after the capture of Bari from the Byzantines in 1071 Norman control of southern Italy was virtually complete. There was significant contact between Normandy and the newly established Norman Italian lands which often sent money back to the homeland for religious endowments. Norman prelates such as Geoffrey of Coutances and perhaps Odo as well had called upon their kinsfolk in the south for money to help them fund their building activities at home. Many of the treasures that were sent back to Normandy were the result of looting from Greek churches in southern Italy (Douglas 1969, 111).

  • The Normans and the Papacy •

  The Normans were no strangers to papal politics. In Italy they demonstrated a cavalier attitude to allies and enemies alike and had fought their way to dominance in the south by frequently exchanging one for the other. Relations between the Normans and the papacy had been particularly volatile and they and their leaders had frequently been excommunicated. Despite the chequered history of their dealings with the papacy, in 1080 Robert Guiscard became the protector of Pope Gregory VII, viewing him as a buttress against the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV. Gregory is known to history as a great Church reformer, but for much of his time as pope he was deeply embroiled in the tangled politics of central Italy. The Holy Roman Empire controlled the Lombard states in the north of Italy and the Normans controlled most of the south of Italy and Sicily, with Rome and the Papal States lying between these two power blocks. Pope Gregory was involved in a bitter and prolonged dispute with Emperor Henry, which became known as the Investiture Conflict. At the heart of this quarrel was an argument over the primacy of popes, particularly in the question of who chose the bishops, and new canon law which proclaimed the exclusive right of the College of Cardinals to elect a pope. Matters came to a head in 1076 over the choice of a new archbishop of Milan, when Emperor Henry tried to appoint his own nominee and claimed that he had deposed the pope. In response, Gregory excommunicated the emperor, divesting him of his ‘royal dignity’ and freeing Henry’s subjects of any oaths they had sworn to him. Because he lacked sufficient support to force an armed confrontation at this stage, Henry was obliged to back down and there ensued an uneasy peace between the two, but four years later Gregory excommunicated Henry once more. This time it was the pope who was the weaker; thirteen cardinals deserted him and Henry pronounced Archbishop Guibert of Ravenna as the new pope. Guibert chose the title of Clement III and remained as an irritant anti-pope until his death in 1100.

  43 Scenes from the life of Pope Gregory VII from Otto, Bishop of Freising’s World Chronicle, a twelfth-century copy of original illustrations in the manuscript presented by the author to his nephew, Fredrick I, in 1157. The top panel shows Gregory being expelled from St Peter’s by Emperor Henry IV.

  In 1081 Henry arrived at the gates of Rome with his army and the anti-pope, but he had insufficient troops to take the city as to his surprise many Romans remained loyal to Gregory. In the spring of 1082 Henry made another unsuccessful attempt to enter Rome, but despite this setback his support amongst many factions in Italy was growing. Duke Robert Guiscard was on campaign in the eastern Adriatic and when he heard of the new threat to Gregory he returned in haste to Italy. When he arrived at Rome he found that
Henry had retired to Tuscany and the anti-pope to Tivoli accompanied by a contingent of German soldiers. Consequently, the duke retired to Apulia to deal with an uprising of his own people. At the beginning of 1083 Henry returned to Rome with a larger army and began a serious siege of the city. Eventually, on 2 June the imperial troops breached the walls and entered the city; however, Gregory then took refuge in the heavily fortified Castel Sant’Angelo. There followed a period of stalemate between the two protagonists: Henry clearly had the military advantage, but Gregory still had sufficient support within the city to be able to maintain his base in Rome. Attempts at a negotiated settlement involving the calling of a synod ended in farce when, among other solutions, it was suggested that the pope would not actually perform the coronation of Henry, but pass him down the imperial crown on a stick from the battlements of Sant’Angelo.

  • Odo’s fall from Grace •

  News of the events in Italy would have quickly found their way back to Normandy and England. There were strong familial ties with the Norman states in the Mediterranean, with a steady flow of individuals making their way in both directions. Robert Guiscard’s origins were in the Cotentin, not that far from Bayeux, and, reputedly, he never forgot his upbringing there (Douglas 1969, 112). Guiscard’s contacts with Norman bishops went back a long way; in the 1050s the young Geoffrey Mowbray, Bishop of Coutances had travelled to meet Robert in Italy and returned with treasures to help him rebuild his cathedral. Robert Guiscard’s brother Count Roger, who was largely responsible for wresting control of Sicily from the Muslim emirate, is also recorded as retaining fond memories of his upbringing in the Cotentin as well as his early association with the Abbey of St Evroul.

  Odo might have reasoned that Guiscard would welcome a wealthy fellow-Norman pope, who would surely be more accommodating than the stubbornly pious Gregory. Gregory was seen as ‘fiery and passionate’ but also as headstrong and a ‘tactless individualist’ (Hetherington 1994, 56). The Normans in the north had a poor opinion of the papacy and Odo would have been aware that elections to the Holy See had frequently been determined by money or violence. The theme of exploitation and corruption at Rome was common amongst eleventh-century satirists. Odo’s protégé Serlo had written much on the failings of the papacy and claimed that wise men had pointlessly crossed the Alps to reach Rome, as no one listened to them (Bates 1975, 202). After 1077 the unity of the Anglo-Norman royal family began to break up and for the remaining decade of his life the king was at odds with his eldest son, Robert Curthose. Odo might have seen opportunities arising from the rift; but although it is likely that the bishop was in some way involved, he knew that there were limits to his secular power. It may have seemed to Odo that the chaotic state of papal politics offered him a unique chance to occupy the loftiest position in western Christendom and thus satisfy his undoubted ambition.

  Odo was able to persuade a number of Anglo-Norman knights to support his cause, although only Earl Hugh of Chester is named. There is no suggestion that he made overtures to Guiscard to further his ambitions, but in the absence of firm evidence it is tempting to imagine the artful Odo employing his diplomatic skills in this direction in order to achieve his aims. Indeed, according to William of Malmesbury, he made advance arrangements in Rome by purchasing a palace in the city, furnishing it at great expense and fortifying it (Bates 1970, 247). Orderic Vitalis notes that, ‘Odo bought a palace in Rome and bribed senators’ and that he prepared to go there in the company of ‘a goodly company of distinguished knights and Earl Hugh of Chester’ (OV).The bishop is reported to have bribed some of the Roman gentry and even a number of cardinals to support his audacious bid. William of Malmesbury wrote that, ‘He [Odo] had wonderful skill at accumulating treasure, possessed extreme craft in dissembling, so that absent, yet, stuffing the scrips [satchels] of the pilgrims with letters and money, he had nearly purchased the Roman papacy from the citizens’ and he was intending to take vast amounts of gold and treasure out of the country, in quantities that ‘surpassed anything that our age could imagine’ (WM). He also claimed that after the bishop’s arrest many sacks full of wrought gold were found in rivers, where they had been hidden.

  Odo’s wealth was legendary even during his own lifetime and he was obviously prepared to spend prodigious amounts of money in achieving his ambitions. Although revenues from the diocese of Bayeux were intended for the use of the Church, King William claimed that Odo failed to keep proper accounts, implying that he was guilty of embezzlement. Such a concept might have seemed foreign to Odo, who would have seen himself as inseparable from the Church he represented. His wealth and pomp would have reflected that of his Church and his grandeur was that of his cathedrals. It would have been the income from his various estates and activities in England that would have provided the bulk of his wealth. Some, if not most, of the resources required for rebuilding the cathedral after 1066 would have originated in England, and no doubt it was this source of income that formed the preponderance of the money he was going to spend in 1088.

  If Odo was making these plans, there was nothing in his public persona to show it. He was in Normandy in the autumn of 1082 where, together with his two brothers, Robert and William, he witnessed a charter to the abbey at Grestain. This document agreed that gifts to Grestain should be held on the same terms as those given to the Conqueror’s abbey of St Étienne in Caen. This event has been used to demonstrate William’s special regard for the monastery where his mother was buried. Poignantly, this meeting of the three middle-aged brothers to protect the memory of their long-dead mother would have been the last time that William and Odo were together on friendly terms. A lifetime of co-operation between the two was about to come to an abrupt and acrimonious end.

  Odo assembled his army on the Isle of Wight either in late 1082 or early 1083. When the king heard of the plot he hurried from Normandy and confronted the bishop as he was about to sail. William objected strongly to Odo raising a private army in England and taking it out of the country and in doing so depriving the king of knights required for the defence of the realm. Odo was brought before a council, probably at Winchester, but he objected that as a bishop he was subject only to the pope’s jurisdiction. In reply, William of Malmesbury records that the king ‘threw him into confinement, saying that he did not seize the bishop of Bayeux, but the earl of Kent’ (WM i, 506–7). Reputedly, it was Lanfranc who was Odo’s nemesis, by advising the king to give this artful response. Orderic Vitalis used the occasion to give William comprehensive and damning hindsight in condemning ‘my brother, to whom I entrusted the care of my entire kingdom, has laid violent hands on her substance, has cruelly oppressed the poor, has seduced my knights on frivolous pretences, and has spread disorder through the whole of England by his unjust exactions’ (OV). According to Wace, Odo was then taken to a nearby ship, which, as the wind was favourable, sailed directly to Rouen. Nothing was written about the fate of Odo’s assembled troops or of the fleet that was to convey them to Rome. As so few details are provided, it suggests that the chroniclers were writing from anecdotal evidence rather than more reliable sources. The next stage of Odo’s life is a complete blank. It is recorded that Odo was held in the Tower at Rouen Castle for four years, and was not allowed to leave it until the king had died (Wace, 9197–9222).

  Some scholars simply do not accept the story of Odo’s attempt on the papacy and believe that he was arrested for intriguing with Robert Curthose to usurp the king (Chibnall, 4, xxvii–xxx). Other sources are ambivalent. There was no strongly worded response from the pope about Odo’s attempt to supplant him; in fact, Gregory seemed to support Odo’s position on his trial and protested at the infringement of his clerical status. The pope complained bitterly to his papal legate Hugh of Lyons but adopted a more conciliatory tone when writing to King William. In 1087, not long before he was released, Urban II ordered that no harm should come to Bayeux Cathedral because of Odo’s imprisonment, perhaps repeating a decree originally issued by Pope Gregory (Tabuteau 1988,
375). The absence of any reference to Odo’s motives in the papal reaction does not necessarily mean that Gregory was unaware of them, for the pope had a great deal more on his mind in early 1083 ‘than the thwarted ambitions of an eccentric French bishop’ (Bates 1975, 15). There also remains the unanswered question of why the king did not punish Hugh, Earl of Chester, who was said by Orderic to be Odo’s chief supporter; his crime was, after all, identical to the bishop’s. What is undisputed is that the bishop spent the next four years in prison.

  • The Tower of Rouen •

  We know nothing about Odo’s time in prison, how he was treated or what degree of freedom he was allowed. He was presumably under the immediate detention of the constable of the ducal castle at Rouen, who would have been responsible to the vicomte of Rouen. The prison was in the keep or tower at Rouen, and the whole fortification came to be known as the ‘Tower’, like the Tower of London (Round 1892). Indeed, it has been suggested that the design of the White Tower in London was partly based on the Tower in Rouen (Le Maho 2000). There was a postern gate leading from the Seine to the Tower, which meant that Odo would have been shipped directly from the Isle of Wight straight into prison. The Tower had been built by Duke Richard I in the second half of the tenth century and would have probably been the first stone-built keep in Normandy. It was a large quadrilateral-shaped build, whose design seems to have been based on earlier castles at Chartres, Laon and Pithiviers. There is no surviving description of the castle, which was destroyed by the French king, Philippe Augustus, when he took over Normandy in 1204, but there are references to various parts of the Tower. There was a Tower chapel dedicated to St Romain, a kitchen, a reception room, ducal quarters and a gallery linking it to the great hall in the ducal palace. During its lifetime its size became legendary, leading to the twelfth-century expression, ‘weighing as much as the Tower of Rouen’ (Le Maho 2000, 73–5). Towards the beginning of the Bayeux Tapestry, at the point where Duke William is arranging the release of the captured Earl Harold, a prominent stone castle is depicted (colour plate 24). This grand building is generally believed to be Rouen Castle, but it has also been interpreted as representing Guy de Ponthieu’s castle at Beaurain. On balance, its size and its close juxtaposition to William on the Tapestry favour a ducal rather than a comital fortification. In the middle of a crenallated wall there is a tower, or possibly the top of a motte with a tower sitting on it. In either case, this portrait has to be treated with caution, as many of the buildings depicted on the Tapestry are stereotypical rather than accurate representations of actual constructions (Musset 2005, 66–71). Nevertheless, it is ironic that the place where Odo spent what must have been a miserable and frustrating four years of his life is portrayed so proudly on the bishop’s own greatest lasting creation.