Odo, Count of Champagne

Odo (Modern French: Eudes; c. 1040–1115)[1] was Count of Troyes and of Meaux from 1047 to 1066, then Count of Aumale from 1069 to 1115. He was later also known as the count of Champagne and as Eudes II of Troyes.

Odo
Count of Champagne
Count of Troyes and Meaux
Reign	1047 to 1066
Born	c. 1040
Died	1115
Noble family	Blois
Spouse	Adelaide of Normandy
Issue Stephen, Count of Aumale
Father	Stephen II of Troyes and Meaux
Mother	Adele

Biography

Odo was the son of Stephen II of Troyes and Meaux, and Adele.[2] He was still a minor at the death of his father, and his uncle Theobald III of Blois acted as regent of Troyes.

In 1060, Odo married Adelaide of Normandy, daughter of Robert I, Duke of Normandy and widow of Enguerrand II, Count of Ponthieu, Lord of Aumale and Lambert II, Count of Lens.[1] After the death of Enguerrand's only daughter Adelaide, her mother Adelaide of Normandy became her heir and hence through his marriage Odo acquired the title Count (or Earl) of Aumale in Normandy Jure uxoris (by right of his wife).[3]

Adelaide (sometime called Adeliza) was also sister of William the Conqueror,[1] and Odo accompanied his brother-in-law in the Norman conquest of England (1066).[3] Theobald III of Blois then seized Odo's counties in the Champagne region, One version states William I, for his services in the conquest gave Odo Holderness in Yorkshire.[3] Another proposes that the Lordship of Holderness was granted to William's sister Adelaide, in 1087, and Odo became Earl of Holderness by right of his wife.

Odo was, with Alan Rufus and Roger of Poitou, one of the commanders of the army sent by King William II to besiege William de St-Calais at Durham Castle after the Rebellion of 1088, and who signed St-Calais's guarantee of personal safety.

Odo was implicated in a plot to place his son Stephen of Aumale on the English throne.[4] Stephen was the first cousin of brothers William Rufus, King of England and Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy.[5] Stephen was apparently not put on trial himself as he may have been out of the king's reach in Normandy.[6] Odo was imprisoned in 1095. Odo lost his English lands for his complicity[7] but they were restored to Stephen two years after the death of William Rufus.

Family

Odo had one son with Adelaide: Stephen, Count of Aumale (died 1127).[8]

In 1902 Richard Langrishe published a paper in which he put forward the theory that Odo was the primogenitor of the Irish family of Le Gras (Grace).[3] This amended an older theory that Raymond FitzGerald (died 1185/1198) was the primogenitor.[9] However Richard Roach (1970) upheld the older proposition, but more recently M. T. Flanagan (2004) disagreed with Roach because FitzGerald had no known legitimate heirs.[10][11]

Notes

1. Bates 2004.
2. Evergates 1999, p. 12.
3. Langrishe 1902, p. 64-67.
4. C. Warren Hollister, 'Magnates and Curiales in Early Norman England', Viator, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1977), p. 68
5. David Crouch, The Normans; The History of a Dynasty (London; New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2007), p. 147
6. Frank Barlow, William Rufus (London: Methuen, 1983), p. 358
7. C. Warren Hollister, 'Magnates and Curiales in Early Norman England', Viator, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1977), p. 70
8. Barlow 1983, p. 272.
9. Langrishe 1900, p. 319-324.
10. Roach 1970, p. 180.
11. Flanagan 2004.

References

• Barlow, Frank (1983), William Rufus (illustrated ed.), University of California Press, p. 272, ISBN 0-520-04936-5
• Bates, David (Sep 2004). "Odo, earl of Kent (d. 1097)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/20543. Retrieved 23 August 2010. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Evergates, Theodore, ed. (1999). Aristocratic Women in Medieval France. University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Flanagan, M. T. (September 2004). "Fitzgerald, Raymond fitz William (d. 1189x92)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9582. Retrieved 24 August 2010. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Langrishe, Richard (31 December 1900), "The Origin of the Grace Family of Courtstown, County of Kilkenny, and of Their Title to the Tullaroan Estate", The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 5, 30 (4): 319–324, JSTOR 25507087
• Langrishe, Richard (31 March 1902), "The Origin of the Grace Family of Courtstown, County Kilkenny. (No 2)", The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 5, 32 (1): 64–67, JSTOR 25507186
• Roach, Richard (1970), The Norman Invasion of Ireland, Anvil Books, ISBN 0-947962-81-6.