For the first time since its creation almost 1000 years ago, the Bayeux Tapestry is coming to England in 2026 for a major exhibition at the British Museum, and for Chilworth it has a special resonance.
In scene 54 of this wonderfully embroidered visual narrative that describes the Norman conquest, horses carry riders, clad in chain mail, pell-mell in the confusion of battle, spears and swords aloft. Below the action, in the lower margin, the bodies of the fallen, men and horses alike, testify to the terrible losses inflicted. Central to the scene, a knight on a black stallion raises a wooden club and urges the soldiers on. Above, the script proclaims: “Here, Bishop Odo, holding a club, gives strength to the boys”.
It is hard to imagine a bishop of the church risking life and limb on the battlefield (though his official seal shows him a churchman on one side and a warrior on the other), but it seems as though he was a politically astute nobleman as well – in the aftermath of the conquest he was gifted more lands and estates than any other Norman lord, second only to William , and created Earl of Kent as well as being the King’s Regent. Commissioning the Tapestry itself was a shrewd tactic – apart from it legitimising William’s claim to the throne, Odo was careful to ensure he himself appeared in it at strategic moments. And being William’s half-brother too probably wasn’t a disadvantage!
Among those almost 17,000 acres across the south and east of England that Odo acquired , the Saxon landowner in possession of Chilworth Manor ( Alwyn, according to the Domesday Book) found he had a new and immensely powerful landlord who had his eyes on the tithes and taxes that Alwyn managed to raise.
For Chilworth, this meant that the estate essentially became church land and so, it appears, it remained for several centuries until the Dissolution drove out the Augustinian Friars who had created a monastic site here from the 13th century.
And what of Odo? How could such a character not have a colourful life to the end? If having such wealth and power as he did was the pinnacle, his ultimate fall from grace was as spectacular. Put on trial for defrauding the king, he was finally imprisoned for planning a secret military campaign to Italy (possibly to install himself as Pope!). Released as William was on his deathbed , he promptly embroiled himself in a plot to install William’s son on the throne rather than his brother and he finally died in Sicily on his way to the First Crusade.
So, raise a glass of our 2019 vintage named 'The Bishop' in honour of this extraordinary character and if you are ever in Palermo, search out his tomb in the cathedral and send him Chilworth’s warm regards!
