Odo of Bayeux

“ Odo (d. 1200) , abbot of Battle, was a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, and was prior of this house at the time when Thomas Racket was murdered. In 1175 he was chosen abbot of Battle, and on two occasions the efforts of Henry II. alone prevented him from being elected archbishop of Canterbury. Odo or Odda (d. 1056) , a relative of Edward the Confessor, during whose reign he was an earl in the west of England, built the minster at Deerhurst in Gloucestershire. ”

“ And with them went a kinsman of an elder generation, whose long history, though not specially long life, is now drawing to an end. Bishop Odo of Bayeux could not bear to stay in Normandy again to become a subject of the nephew to whom he had surrendered himself at Rochester. [1521] He joined the forces of his elder nephew, and with him went the eloquent Bishop of Evreux, Gilbert, who had preached the funeral sermon of the Conqueror. [1522] Conduct of Robert.The Duke on his armed pilgrimage showed new powers. ”

“ The Bishop of Coutances and Duke William's half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, both these high officials of the Church were there to stay the hands of their parishioners, and uphold the devout fighters in this crusade. Odo made the soldiers promise that whoever survived the morrow's battle would never again eat meat on Saturday; by such petty means he hoped to gain success at the hands of God who rules battles on a larger scope, and who, through the quarrels and jealousies of men, brings slowly near the day when justice shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. ”

“ The Bishop of Bayeux, though not dead, as the fugitives supposed who had seen the combat between Odo and Earl Ralph, with its catastrophe of mutual unhorsing, was hors-de-combat for the time being, and unable to seek retrieval of his knightly prowess in person. ”

“ The canon laws indeed forbade a priest to shed blood; but this was evaded, it is said, by the use of a mace instead of a sword. The warrior-priest did not stab a man; he only brained him. It is on this ground that the baton held by Odo has been considered by some writers to be a weapon.
In consequence of the confusion and panic which attended the disasters in the Malfosse, a report was spread among the Normans that William was dead. ”

“ This scene is worked in with real humour; the soldiers are hardly able to restrain their appetite till grace has been said (Plate VIII.) . Immediately afterwards (51) are seen Bishop Odo, the Conqueror and his eldest son, Count Robert, the three most distinguished ornaments of the war, seated together in a tent (Plate IX.) .
In (52) it is ordered that a rampart be thrown up: the camp is shown. A messenger arrives giving news of Harold, and a house is burned (53) . ”

“ For a moment sovereign and subjects measured each other; and in that moment Odo drank his deepest draught of life. He was not thinking now of the constitution or its opponents. His present business was to get down the steps and into the carriage, returning to the palace as openly as he had come. He was conscious of neither pity nor hatred for the throng in his path. For the moment he regarded them merely as a natural force, to be fought against like storm or flood. ”

“ This, then, was the famous Procuratore Bra, whose house had given three Doges to Venice, and who was himself regarded as the most powerful if not the most scrupulous noble of his day. Odo had heard many tales of his singularities, for in a generation of elegant triflers his figure stood out with the ruggedness of a granite boulder in a clipped and gravelled garden. To hereditary wealth and influence he added a love of power seconded by great political sagacity and an inflexible will. ”

“ As the procession wound into the church, to the ringing of bells and the chanting of the choir, Odo was struck by the spectacle of that line of witnesses, watching in glassy-eyed irony the pomp and display to which their moldering robes and tarnished insignia seemed to fix so brief a term. Once or twice already he had felt the shows of human power as no more than vanishing reflections on the tide of being ”

“ He hesitated to accept the primacy, however, on the ground that he was not a monk, as all those had been who had preceded him in that see. But the king overruled the objection by sending to the abbot of Fleury, who himself brought over the monastic cowl with which he invested the archbishop elect. Odo at once addressed himself to the Augean task of reform, and appointed his nephew, Oswald, to the deanery of Winchester, hoping thereby to introduce more regular discipline among the canons of that cathedral. ”

“ Though here and there a good parish priest like Crescenti ministered to the temporal wants of the peasantry, it was only the free-thinker and the atheist who, at the risk of life and fortune, laboured for their moral liberation. Odo listened with a saddened heart, thinking, as he followed his host through the perfumed shade of the gardens, and down the long saloon at the end of which the Venus stood, of those who for the love of man had denied themselves such delicate emotions and gone forth cheerfully to exile or imprisonment. ”

“ Was humanity in chains? Behold the angel on the threshold of the prison!
Odo, too impatient to await the next reunion of the Honey-Bees, sought out and frequented those among the members whose conversation had chiefly attracted him. They were grave men, of studious and retiring habit, leading the frugal life of the Italian middle-class, a life in dignified contrast to the wasteful and aimless existence of the nobility. Odo's sensitiveness to outward impressions made him peculiarly alive to this contrast. ”

“ In the rearward beneath the purple folds of the holy banner of the Pope the giant bastard rode, and by his side, mail clad as he, and armed like him with ponderous mace of steel, was Odo the bishop. Down the valley where the road runs now they came, and saw above them a close wall of shields. All the crest of the hill, all the open ground from forest to forest, was held by mail-clad axemen, Harold's thegns and housecarles, whereof, the vikings sang, each man was two men's match. ”

“ The Marchioness thereupon, with many tears, hung a scapular about Odo's neck, bidding him shun the theatre and be regular at confession; one of the canonesses reminded him not to omit a visit to the chapel of the Holy Winding-sheet, while the other begged him to burn a candle for her at the Consolata; and the servants pressed forward to embrace and bless their little master.
Day was high by this, and as the Marquess's travelling-chariot rumbled down the valley the shadows seemed to fly before it. Odo at first lay numb; but presently his senses woke to the call of the brightening landscape. ”

“ His piety was of a stamp so different from the abate's that it vivified the theological abstractions over which Odo had formerly languished, infusing a passionate meaning into the formulas of the textbooks. His discourse breathed the same spirit, and had his religion been warmed by imagination or tempered by charity the child had been a ductile substance in his hands; but the shadow of the Council of Trent still hung over the Church in Savoy, making its approach almost as sombre and forbidding as that of the Calvinist heresy. ”

“ She spoke with the air of one well-acquainted with the subject, and Odo, curious to learn more, asked her how she came to have such an insight into the intrigues of the court.
"Why," said she, "in the oddest way imaginable--by being the guest of his lordship the Bishop of Pianura; and since you asked me just now to tell you something of my adventures, I will, if you please, begin by relating the occurrences that procured me this extraordinary honour. But first," she added with a smile, "would it not be well to open another bottle of Malaga?" ”

“ Long before the hour Odo was buttoned into his embroidered coat and waistcoat. He would have on the sword at once, and when they sat down to dinner, though his mother pressed him to eat with more concern than she had before shown, it went hard with him to put his weapon aside, and he cast longing eyes at the corner where it lay. At length a chamberlain summoned them and they set out down the corridors, attended by two servants. Odo held his head high, with one hand leading Donna Laura (for he would not appear to be led by her) while the other fingered his sword. ”

“ Her voice gained strength and measure as she spoke, and Odo felt that all that passion could urge must spend itself in vain against such high security of spirit.
"Go, cavaliere," she continued, "I implore you to lose no time in reaching Pianura. Occasion is short-lived, and an hour's lingering may cost you the regency, and with it the chance of gaining a hold on your people. I will not expatiate, as some might, on the power and dignities that await you. You are no adventurer plotting to steal a throne, but a soldier pledged to his post." ”

“ These personages, grouped about the toilet-table where the Countess sat under the hands of a Parisian hairdresser, were picturesquely relieved against the stucco panelling and narrow mirrors of the apartment, with its windows looking on a garden set with mossy statues. To Odo, however, the scene suggested the most tedious part of his day's routine. The compliments to be exchanged, the silly verses to be praised, the gewgaws from Paris to be admired, were all contrasted in his mind with the vision of that other life which had come to him on the hillside of the Superga. ”

“ No one was more ignorant than her husband of the motives determining her act. As Duchess of Monte Alloro she might have enjoyed the wealth and independence which her uncle's death had bestowed on her, but in marrying again she resigned the right to her new possessions, which became vested in the crown of Pianura. Was it love that had prompted the sacrifice? As she stood beside him on the altar steps of the Cathedral, as she rode home beside him between their shouting subjects, Odo asked himself the question again and again. ”

“ Father Ignazio has lately counselled the little prince's visiting in state the protectress of his line, and his Highness's physician, Count Heiligenstern, does not disapprove the plan. In fact," she added, "I understand that he thinks all special acts of piety beneficial, as symbolising the inward act by which the soul incessantly strives to reunite itself to the One."
The Dominican glanced at Odo with a smile. "The Count's dialectics," said he, "might be dangerous were they a little clearer; but we must hope he distinguishes more accurately between his drugs than his dogmas." ”

“ He continued to pay particular attention to Odo, and the rumour was soon abroad that the Cavaliere Valsecca had been sent for to visit his cousin, the reigning Duke; a rumour which, combined with Donna Laura's confidential hints, made Odo the centre of much feminine solicitude, and roused the Countess Clarice to a vivid sense of her rights. These circumstances, and his own tendency to drift on the current of sensation, had carried Odo more easily than he could have hoped past the painful episode of the Professor's garden. ”

“ Light and music streamed from the long facade overhead, but the lower gardens lay hushed and dark, the air fragrant with unseen flowers, the late moon just burnishing the edges of the laurel-thickets from which, now and again, a nightingale's song gushed in a fountain of sound. Odo, spellbound, followed the others without a thought of his own share in the adventure. Never before had beauty so ministered to every sense. He felt himself lost in his surroundings, absorbed in the scent and murmur of the night. ”

“ Odo, who had learned that frankness was the surest way to the Duke's favour, replied that, while nothing could be more agreeable than the circumstances of his sojourn at Monte Alloro, he must own to a wish to travel when the occasion offered.
"Why, this is as I fancied," replied the Duke, who held in his hand an open letter on which Odo recognised Maria Clementina's seal. "We have always," he continued, "spoken plainly with each other, and I will not conceal from you that it is for your best interests that you should remain away from Pianura for the present. ”

“ At length they gained the open country, and growing more accustomed to the darkness put their horses to a trot. The change of pace, and the exhilaration of traversing an unknown country in the hush and mystery of night, combined to free their spirits, and Odo began to be aware that the barrier between them was lifted. ”

“ Something in Odo's voice seemed to compel, and soon they were afloat, the boatman bending to his oars. They drifted through the dense mist and soon a dilapidated flight of landing stairs hove in sight, leading up to the deserted monastery.
"Had we chosen the usual landing-place, we should have found two boats moored there—I saw them as we turned." Odo turned to his companion. "Yet we dare not land here. We should be seen from the shore." ”

“ The Church party, in the interest of their order, fostered the Duke's fears of sedition and branded every innovator as an atheist; the Holy Office having even cast grave doubts on the orthodoxy of a nobleman who had tried to introduce the English system of ploughing on his estates. It was evident to Odo that the secret hopes of the reformers centred in him, and the consciousness of their belief was sweeter than love in his bosom. ”

“ He mentioned to Fulvia the rumours of popular disaffection; but she swept them aside with a smile.
"The people mistrust you," she said. "And what does that mean? That you have given your enemies time to work on their credulity. The longer you delay the more opposition you will encounter. Father Ignazio would rather destroy the state than let it be saved by any hand but his."
Odo reflected. "Of all my enemies," he said, "Father Ignazio is the one I most respect, because he is the most sincere." ”