Odo, Count of Champagne
{{Short description|French nobleman (c. 1036 – 1115)}}
{{Infobox noble|type
| name = Odo
| title = Count of Champagne
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| succession = Count of Troyes and Meaux
| reign = 1047–1066
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| spouse = Adelaide of Normandy
| spouse-type = Spouse
| issue = Stephen, Count of Aumale
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| noble family = Blois
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| father = Stephen II of Troyes and Meaux
| mother = Adele
| birth_date = {{c.}} 1040
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| death_date = 1115
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Odo (Modern {{langx|fr|Eudes}}; {{c.}} 1040 – 1115){{sfn|Bates|2004}} 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.
Biography
Odo was the son of Stephen II of Troyes and Meaux, and Adele.{{sfn|Evergates|1999|p=12}} He was still a minor at the death of his father, and his uncle Theobald III of Blois acted as regent of Troyes.{{citation needed|date=February 2011}}
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.{{sfn|Bates|2004}} 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).{{sfn|Langrishe|1902|p=64-67}}
Adelaide (sometime called Adeliza) was also sister of William the Conqueror,{{sfn|Bates|2004}} and Odo accompanied his brother-in-law in the Norman conquest of England (1066).{{sfn|Langrishe|1902|p=64-67}} Theobald III of Blois then seized Odo's counties in the Champagne region,{{citation needed|date=February 2011}} One version states William I, for his services in the conquest gave Odo Holderness in Yorkshire.{{sfn|Langrishe|1902|p=64-67}} 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.C. Warren Hollister, 'Magnates and Curiales in Early Norman England', Viator, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1977), p. 68 Stephen was the first cousin of brothers William Rufus, King of England and Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy.David Crouch, The Normans; The History of a Dynasty (London; New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2007), p. 147 Stephen was apparently not put on trial himself as he may have been out of the king's reach in Normandy.Frank Barlow, William Rufus (London: Methuen, 1983), p. 358 Odo was imprisoned in 1095.{{citation needed|date=February 2011}} Odo lost his English lands for his complicityC. Warren Hollister, 'Magnates and Curiales in Early Norman England', Viator, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1977), p. 70 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).{{sfn|Barlow|1983|p=272}}
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).{{sfn|Langrishe|1902|p=64-67}} This amended an older theory that Raymond FitzGerald (died 1185/1198) was the primogenitor.{{sfn|Langrishe|1900|p=319-324}} 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.{{sfn|Roach|1970|p=180}}{{sfn|Flanagan|2004}}
Notes
{{reflist}}
References
- {{Citation |last=Barlow |first=Frank |year=1983 |title=William Rufus |edition=illustrated |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0-520-04936-5 |author-link=Frank Barlow (historian) |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=2ulxJ9Dfd9MC&pg=PA273 272]}}
- {{cite ODNB |last=Bates |first=David |chapter-url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20543 |chapter=Odo, earl of Kent (d. 1097) |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|edition=online |date=Sep 2004 |accessdate=23 August 2010 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/20543}}
- {{cite book |title=Aristocratic Women in Medieval France |editor-first=Theodore |editor-last=Evergates |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=1999}}
- {{cite ODNB|last=Flanagan |first=M. T. |chapter=Fitzgerald, Raymond fitz William (d. 1189x92)|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |edition=online |date=September 2004|accessdate=24 August 2010|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/9582|chapter-url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9582}}
- {{citation|last=Langrishe |first=Richard |title=The Origin of the Grace Family of Courtstown, County of Kilkenny, and of Their Title to the Tullaroan Estate |journal=The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland |series=5|volume=30 |date=31 December 1900|pages=319–324 |jstor=25507087|issue=4}}
- {{citation|last=Langrishe |first=Richard|title=The Origin of the Grace Family of Courtstown, County Kilkenny. (No 2)|journal=The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland|series=5|volume=32 |date=31 March 1902|pages=64–67 |jstor=25507186|issue=1}}
- {{citation |last=Roach |first=Richard |title=The Norman Invasion of Ireland|year=1970|publisher=Anvil Books|isbn=0-947962-81-6}}.
{{s-start}}
{{s-bef| rows = 2 | before = Stephen II }}
{{s-ttl| title = Count of Troyes
| years = 1047–1066 }}
{{s-aft| rows = 2 | after = Theobald III }}
{{s-ttl| title = Count of Meaux
| years = 1047–1066 }}
{{s-end}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Odo, Count Of Champagne}}
Category:11th-century French nobility
Category:12th-century French nobility