The Man Behind the Bayeux Tapestry

Book excerpt: The extraordinary story of the warrior bishop who commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry and helped plan the Norman Conquest Odo, the younger half-brother of William the Conqueror, was ordained Bishop of Bayeux while still in his teens. He played a pivotal role in the planning and implementation of the Conquest of England, after which, as Earl of Kent, he was second only to William in wealth and power. He was the first Chief Justice of England and on occasion also acted as Regent when the king was in Normandy. In the 1070s he commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry, completed for the consecration of his new cathedral in Bayeux (1077). After defrauding both Crown and Church, Odo was disgraced, and his plans to raise an unauthorized army for a campaign in Italy, possibly in order to gain the papacy, saw him imprisoned for five years. He was released by the dying William in 1087, but soon rebelled against the new king, his nephew William Rufus. He was allowed to return to Normandy in 1088 and died in Palermo, en route for the Holy Land with the First Crusade, in 1097.This is the first full-length biography of Odo."