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lands in Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Middlesex, and also in Berkshire
and Warwickshire. 124
Odo Bishop of Bayeux was the half-brother of William the Conqueror, of the
same mother, Herleve, but with Odo’s father being Herluin, vicomte of Conteville.
Odo was nineteen years old when he became the bishop of Bayeux in 1049. 125
Besides William the Conqueror, Odo had one more brother, who was Robert, count
of Mortain, who received very extensive lands, but no earldom in England. Like his
brother, Odo played a prominent role in ducal Normandy as well as in conquered
England. 126 Odo became the earl of Kent in 1067. In the same year, besides Kent,
the castle of Dover was also entrusted to him and Hugh de Montfort. 127 In England
Odo did not hold his lands as part of his bishopric, but as a secular lordship.
According to Domesday Book, after William the Conqueror and Robert count of
Mortain, Odo was the tenant-in-chief with the most extensive lands in England,
though at the time of Domesday Book, the lands were in royal hands.
Roger the Poitevin was a younger son of Roger de Montgomery, who
became earl of Shrewsbury in England and was one of the Conqueror’s closest
associates before and after the Conquest. Like the rest of the family, Roger the
Poitevin originated from the Normandy-Maine border region where their lordship of
Belleme was. He married the heiress to the county of la Marche, which explains his
cognomen “the Poitevin”. 128 Besides extensive lands in Suffolk, which he seems to
have acquired late, though mostly in the west and centre, Roger Poitevin had lands
124
Green, Aristocracy, pp. 38, 148; Sanders, English Baronies, p. 71.
125
Douglas, William, p. 15.
126
Ibid., p. 136.
127
For more information on Odo the bishop of Bayeux, see ibid., pp. 119-132, 243-5, 294-6; Green,
Aristocracy, pp. 8, 39, 44, 49, 51, 55, 56, 65, 84, 162; Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 599, 612,
614, 616, 623, 625, 630, 637 n, 649, 651, 682; Le Patourel, Norman Empire, pp. 29-30 n, 32-5, 44 n,
47, 141-2, 144 n, 291, 311 n, 335-6; Chibnall, Anglo-Norman England, pp. 12, 14, 36, 61, 126, 193;
Loyn, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 332-3, 389. For Odo as earl of Kent, see Lewis, “Early Earls”, pp.
217-18.
40