The Man Behind the Bayeux Tapestry

by Trevor Rowley

  The king concentrated his response on Sussex and Kent, where the ringleader Odo was entrenched at Rochester with the small force, which Duke Robert had sent from Normandy under Robert de Bellême and Eustace. The duke had promised to dispatch a larger army later. Rochester was well placed for raids on London and to receive reinforcements from Normandy up the River Medway. Although Odo and the other leaders would have been based in the castle, it appears that the rebels held the whole town, protected by the surviving Roman walls.

  William’s forces captured the rebel stronghold of Tonbridge, in doing so cutting off their line of communication to the north. Odo, anticipating reinforcements from the duke, had moved to the south-west to join his brother at Pevensey. The old Romano-British fort of Anderitum was once again at the centre of military action which would settle the future kingship of England. William Rufus, with Lanfranc in support, began a six-week siege of the rebels’ stronghold, by land and by sea. Duke Robert did send a detachment of troops from Normandy, but the fleet carrying them to England was intercepted and destroyed by the king’s ships. This setback delayed Robert’s own departure from Normandy until it was too late and he never reached England. Eventually, lack of food forced Odo to seek a truce and he surrendered in the second week of June. Robert of Mortain seems to have been pardoned, but Odo was captured and offered his freedom on condition that ‘he would go out of England and never more come into this country unless the king sent for him, and that he would render up the castle at Rochester’ (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). There is some confusion over what occurred next. Odo appears to have gone on ahead of the king to Rochester in order to negotiate the surrender. According to some sources, he reneged on his agreement with William by resuming his rebellion from within Rochester Castle, where the rebels were still hoping to be relieved by reinforcements from Normandy. Other accounts record that on his approach to the castle, Odo and his party were arrested and bundled inside. Irrespective of the details, William believed he had been betrayed and began a new siege, raising a large army of mainly native English soldiers. According to Orderic Vitalis, the king built two siege castles to block any exit from the beleaguered fortress at Rochester.

  46 Bridge Warden’s map of Rochester in 1717 showing the relationship of the castle to the bridge and the River Medway. Allen Brown 1969, 15

  Conditions within the town and castle deteriorated rapidly. Orderic Vitalis writes graphically of the increasing distress of the garrison inside the walls, the death of men and horses from disease, and a dreadful plague of flies. The duke’s long-awaited second relief fleet did not appear. Eventually, the rebels were forced to sue for peace and in early July were allowed a semi-honourable surrender. There were reports that Odo exited from Rochester to jeers and demands that he should be hanged. Several of the barons in the besieging force, such as Roger de Montgomery, had sons amongst the rebels and argued for clemency. The rebel leaders were spared their lives, but not their lands, and they were allowed out of Rochester with their horses and arms, but to the sound of royalist trumpets. It was far from the national uprising that was anticipated, given the number of eminent nobles who appeared to support Duke Robert’s cause and elsewhere in England insurrections either collapsed or were controlled. Robert’s own commitment to his own cause appears to have lacked conviction. In a charter to the abbey of Fécamp of 8 July 1088 Robert had added ‘on the day when I should have crossed to England’. The date of the charter has been contested, but the sentiments are hardly those of a conqueror and it is hard to imagine his father, William, expressing them (Sharpe, 147).

  47 A fanciful, but atmospheric reconstruction of Odo leaving Rochester in disgrace. From Cassell’s Illustrated History of England, vol. 1, 1874

  In the aftermath the king acted with considerable lenience, given the treacherous nature of the rebels’ intentions. Odo was allowed to return to Normandy, but the bishop lost his Kentish earldom for the second and final time. It was a defining moment in Odo’s life. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reported that the king regarded Odo’s treason as particularly serious as it was compounded by his defiance of Rufus at Rochester after submitting to him at Pevensey. The other ringleaders, Eustace of Boulogne and Robert de Bellême, also lost their English lands. Odo’s brother Robert of Mortain and Geoffrey of Coutances returned to Normandy but kept their estates in England. Orderic observed that Rufus ‘shrewdly spared the older barons … out of love for his father whom they had served long and faithfully … In any case he knew that disease and speedy death would soon put an end to their activities’ (Aird 2008, 117). Ironically, William de St Calais, Bishop of Durham, who only a few months earlier Odo had viewed as an impediment to his gaining the confidence of William Rufus, was tried and banished as well. However, this particular prelate’s role in the 1088 rebellion was soon forgiven and he was allowed back into England and restored to his bishopric.

  • Banishment •

  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle often concisely summed up events in a pithy sentence, whereas writers such as William of Poitiers and Orderic Vitalis would spread the same incident over many paragraphs. In 1088 the Chronicle laconically describes Odo’s banishment from England as follows: Odo ‘went over sea, and the bishop thus abandoned the dignity that he had in this land’. Odo may have left England in disgrace, but he appears to have wasted little time in attempting to establish himself as Duke Robert’s principal adviser. Although the chroniclers continue to portray Odo in a familiar light during the last decade of his life, as ambitious and power hungry, there is another, even more basic motive underpinning his activities – self-preservation and the protection of his legacy. Odo had gambled everything on the replacement of William Rufus by Robert Curthose as King of England. Now, having been banished from England, with the loss of all his English lands and revenues, he had become vulnerable to the attentions of King William and his younger brother, Henry, now in occupation of the Cotentin. He was back where he had been before the invasion, but in a far weaker position.

  Although Orderic Vitalis claimed that the ‘vanquished’ and ‘very angry’ bishop now prowled the duchy ‘like a fire eating dragon’, Odo appreciated that he had little time to lose if he was going to re-establish his power base in Bayeux. When Duke Robert sold the Cotentin to his younger brother, Henry had taken the title of Count of the Cotentin. A later grant to Henry included land to the east and south of the Cotentin and embraced the overlordship of the Avranchin, including Mont-Saint-Michel and the Bessin, but excluding the cities of Bayeux and Caen. This presented a real threat in Odo’s own backyard; his room for manoeuvre would be strictly limited if he was unable to dislodge Henry quickly. Not only did Henry have control of the Bessin but he would have been the overlord of the diocesan estates across western Normandy. The political landscape of Normandy had changed dramatically from the one Odo had known before his imprisonment. Odo’s own wealth had also been severely diminished with the loss of his English estates. One of the bishop’s first acts when back in Normandy was to advise the arrest of Count Henry. The 1088 rebellion had shattered the trust between William the Conqueror’s three sons and over the next few years they wrestled with one another intermittently within the Duchy of Normandy.

  • The Imprisonment of Count Henry •

  Henry was the only one of the Conqueror’s sons to have been with him when he died and it is generally believed that he was disappointed not to have been given any land, but he used the money left him by the king to great effect. Henry’s role in the 1088 rebellion was ambivalent, but he took no active role in the insurrection and remained in Normandy until it was clear that it had failed. Nevertheless, it was Henry’s money, paid to the duke for the Cotentin, which Robert had used to raise a fleet and an army against William Rufus. Henry sailed to England in late July 1088 with the intention of claiming his mother’s lands, which he believed had been left to him. He was cordially received by the new king and undertook some business with him, but was unable to secure his mother’s estates, which William had already
given away to secure support during the rebellion.

  Henry returned to Normandy in the autumn of 1088 in the company of Robert de Bellême, one of the rebels at Rochester who had been forgiven by the king. Robert had lost relatively little from the abortive uprising, but he was already a considerable force in Normandy. The extensive Bellême lands stretched across the south of the duchy towards Maine, and Robert was also due to inherit the adjacent Hiémois and Seois estates on the death of his father, Roger de Montgomery. Robert, who already had a reputation for cruelty and violence, was destined to be a major player in later Anglo-Norman politics.

  Odo viewed both these passengers on the incoming ship as a danger to himself and to the new duke and had little difficulty in persuading Duke Robert, who is said to have ‘stood in great fear of Odo’ (OV, iv, 148), that Henry and Robert de Bellême had formed a conspiracy with William Rufus against him. It seems unlikely that this was strictly true, but Odo’s assessment of the danger the two posed was eventually to prove correct. Part of William the Conqueror’s policy to maintain peace in Normandy had been to place his own garrisons in the castles of his barons, including those of Robert, but on his death in 1087 Robert had immediately driven out the king’s men and replaced them with his own soldiers.

  48 Nineteenth-century drawing of Odo’s castle at Neuilly l’Évêque, showing Romanesque arches dating from Bishop Odo’s castle, which have since been destroyed. Casset

  Henry and Robert were seized as they were disembarking and were consigned to the bishop’s custody. Henry was imprisoned in Bayeux, while Robert de Bellême was incarcerated in the episcopal prison at Neuilly l’Évêque, about 30km to the west of Bayeux. The duke took advantage of Henry’s imprisonment and reclaimed the Cotentin. Odo also urged the duke to re-establish control of Maine in order to broaden and secure his base as well as reclaiming control of the Bellême castles. William the Conqueror had annexed Maine to Normandy, but the Norman hold on the county was insecure. The Conqueror himself had been obliged to mount repeated campaigns in the region and Robert Curthose had inherited his father’s problems there. Orderic Vitalis recounts a story that in 1089 Robert appealed for help to quell a revolt in Maine. Count Fulk le Rechin of Anjou, the duke’s overlord in the county, agreed to help if Robert would procure for him a noted beauty, Bertrada de Montfort, who was a ward under the protection of her uncle, William of Évreux. Despite disingenuous protestations from her uncle, Bertrada was handed over to Fulk as his third wife in return for his own uncle’s estates. Odo’s name was mistakenly associated with a later episode in Bertrada’s life. In 1092 King Philip of France developed a passion for Bertrada, for whom he deserted his wife, while Bertrada left Count Fulk, fearing that he was going to repudiate her as he had his previous two wives. ‘So the absconding concubine left the adulterous count and lived with the adulterous king,’ thundered Orderic, before going on to accuse Bishop Odo of performing an illicit marriage ceremony for the pair; on this occasion he was not guilty (OV, VIII, 20), although there remained suspicions that the bishop was in some way complicit in the affair.

  Odo was so concerned about subduing Maine that he took command of part of the ducal army himself. In the event, Robert captured one of the Bellême castles near Alençon and Maine was easily pacified on this occasion. At this point, the duke was approached by Roger de Montgomery seeking a truce and the release of his son Robert de Bellême. The duke believed that he had completed his expedition successfully and Bellême was freed from Odo’s custody. In retrospect, even the duke would have admitted that this was foolhardy, as once out of prison Bellême ‘took vengeance daily in every way he could’ (OV, iv, 150–8). According to Orderic, Prince Henry was released in the spring of 1089, following representations from the duke’s magnates. Although Henry did not formally have his comital title restored, he proceeded to act as if it had been. As Odo saw his plans unravelling he must have been in despair. By way of compensation Robert issued a charter, witnessed by the duke’s supporters, confirming lands granted to the cathedral church of Bayeux. In order to enforce this charter, it concluded with the threat that anyone interfering with episcopal estates would be anathemised (cursed) personally by the Archbishop of Rouen (Hollister 2001, 66–8). The summer of 1089 seems to have been a turning point in Odo’s relationship with the duke. In April the bishop was with Robert at the castle of Vernon as the duke was preparing for an expedition to enlist the French king’s help. It may have been the fear that Robert would not return or that he would be heavily defeated which made Odo insist that Robert confirmed the possessions of Bayeux Cathedral. On 20 July the bishop was present at the siege of Eu, which was in the hands of William Rufus’s allies; at this time Odo obtained a confirmation from the duke of his establishment of St Vigor (Allen, 152). Coincidentally, it was here that Odo made the acquaintance of Abbot Gerento of St Bénigne in Dijon, who was present on business concerning his abbey and St Étienne in Caen. Gerento was known as a deeply pious man and the contrast with Odo has been pointed out by several historians, perplexed by their friendship. It is possible that the two men discussed the future of St Vigor at this time, but what is certain is that six years later Odo was to trust his abbey into the care of Gerento. The bishop was present at an impressive court gathering sometime before 9 September where episcopal business was carried out. Thereafter, up until his preparations for the crusade in 1096, Odo did not play an important role in ducal affairs. He seems to have largely remained within his own diocese and concerned himself with Church matters.

  • Duke Robert II and King William II •

  Many historians of the time and later have dismissed Duke Robert II as being weak and vacillating; and there certainly was considerable inconsistency in his policies in Normandy after 1088. Opinions differ over whether Odo was responsible for these vagaries or his advice was not heeded enough or, more probably, that he became increasingly politically impotent. It is not surprising that there was a lack of resolution after the 1088 rebellion, as both men faced a new and unusual situation in the Anglo-Norman world. Under the Conqueror, England and Normandy had been ruled as one, with a single powerful leader who had immense wealth and considerable military capacity. After 1087 England under William Rufus had become a powerful neighbour, looking towards Normandy as part of the realm that had become detached. From 1089 Normandy was divided, with a competent, hungry and militarily active Count Henry in charge of the Cotentin, while parts of Upper Normandy were effectively in the pay of William Rufus. The rest of Normandy, under Duke Robert, was a shadow of William the Conqueror’s pre-1066 duchy, particularly its security and wealth, and it is scarcely surprising that Robert tried several ways of raising funds and increasing the number of his supporters – he was operating in difficult and unknown political territory.

  Duke Robert had little experience of ruling in his own right and should perhaps have been grateful for the advice of the seasoned political campaigner Bishop Odo. On the other hand, he would have been aware of Odo’s reputation for duplicity and, consequently, may not have taken Odo’s counsel all that seriously. He would also have been aware of the antipathy existing between his brothers and the bishop as they became increasingly active in the duchy. Robert may have thought it sensible to leave Odo outside his circle of close advisers, except on Church affairs and matters relating to the defence of the Bessin. Nevertheless, according to Orderic, probably soon after his banishment Odo instructed Robert how best to perform his duties at the ducal palace in Rouen. He explained that the protection of the Church and the weak in society was his primary duty as duke. Odo provided Robert with a list of role models to emulate, including King David, Alexander the Great, Caesar and Robert’s own father, William the Conqueror. These men, Odo explained, were able to alternate kindliness with severity as the occasion demanded. Odo concluded to general applause from the court:

  Reflect carefully on all that I have said; and stand up worthily as a good prince should for the peace of holy Mother Church and for the defence of the poor
and helpless; put down all opponents with resolution.

  (OV, iv, 152–3)

  Most observers tended to agree with William of Malmesbury’s assessment of Robert’s character, that is, it did not meet Odo’s requirements. The chronicler claimed that the duke preferred the straightforward problems of the battlefield to those of the subtleties of the court. He was ‘a man with no memory for the wrong done to him, and forgave offences beyond what was right; to all who came to him he gave the answer they desired rather than send them away disappointed …’. Malmesbury went on to say that this generosity should have won the duke the affection of his subjects, but instead they held him in contempt. Robert’s kindliness was not always in evidence; after capturing the Bellême castle of St Ceneri, for instance, he is said to have blinded the castellan and mutilated its garrison. Such cruelty might have been in response to similar actions by Robert de Bellême, but it was not politically adept as he was about to release Bellême from captivity (Hollister 2001, 66).