Odon of Bayeux - Trial, Imprisonment and Rebellion

Trial, Imprisonment and Rebellion

In 1076 Odo was tried in front of a large and senior assembly over the course of three days at Penenden Heath in Kent for defrauding the Crown and the Diocese of Canterbury. At the conclusion of the trial he was forced to return a number of properties and his assets were re-apportioned.

In 1082, he was suddenly disgraced and imprisoned for having planned a military expedition to Italy. His motivations are not certain. Chroniclers writing a generation later said Odo desired to make himself Pope, but the contemporary evidence is ambiguous. Whatever the reason, Odo spent the next five years in prison, and his English estates were taken back by the king, as was his office as Earl of Kent: Odo was not however deposed as Bishop of Bayeux.

William, on his deathbed in 1087, was reluctantly persuaded by his brother, Robert, Count of Mortain to release Odo. After the king's death, Odo returned to his earldom and soon organized a rebellion in support of William's son, Robert Curthose, who had been made Duke of Normandy. The Rebellion of 1088 failed and William Rufus permitted Odo to leave the kingdom. Afterwards, Odo remained in the service of Robert in Normandy.

He joined the First Crusade, and started in the duke's company for Palestine, but died on the way at Palermo in January or February 1097.

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