Odo I. (Blois)

Odo I. (French: Eudes ; * around 950; † March 12, 995/996) was a count of Blois , Tours , Chartres , Châteaudun , Beauvais and Dreux , lord of Chinon and Saumur . He was a son of Count Theobald the deceiver († 975) and his wife Ledgard von Vermandois († 978).

Around the year 965 Odo received Coucy Castle as a fief from the Archbishop of Reims . After the death of his maternal uncle Heribert the Elder († 980/984), Odo inherited the county of Reims , the Abbey of Saint-Médard (Soissons) , and the land around Provins and Château-Thierry ( Omois ) with which the House of Blois in the Champagne region gained a foothold. From his liege lord, Duke Hugo Capet , he received the abbeys of Saint-Martin and Marmoutier before 984 . He released the latter into the Clunician Association and laid a necropolis for his family.

biography

Odo began the generation-long feud between his house and the neighboring Counts of Anjou . The point of contention was the predominance in Touraine and Brittany , where both houses were present. Odo supported his vassal Count Conan the Crooked de Rennes in his efforts to conquer Nantes , which was controlled by Anjou. But in the first battle of Conquereuil in 981, Conan was defeated by Gottfried Graujacke von Anjou .

The rivalry with the Anjou was also reflected in their different parties in the power struggle between Carolingians and Robertinians for the royal throne. While Odo broke away from his former liege lord Hugo Capet (Robertiner) and took the side of the Carolingian king Lothar , Gottfried von Anjou remained a loyal supporter of Capet. Together with his cousin Heribert the Younger , Odo took part in the king's campaign to Lorraine , which culminated in the conquest of Verdun in 985.

Odo took advantage of the elevation of Hugo Capet to king in 987 to have the castle of Dreux transferred to him as a reward for his recognition of the change of ruler. This led Odo into enmity with the Norman Duke Richard Ohnefurcht , to whom Dreux actually belonged. But after this win, Odo also fell away from the new king and instead allied himself with the Carolingian pretender Karl of Lower Lorraine , the brother of King Lothar, who had declared war on Capet and occupied Laon . After Charles fell into captivity in 991, Odo began to fight the king in the region between Loire and Marne . He took possession of the castle of Melun, which he lost to Burchard the Venerable of Vendôme , from whom he was additionally defeated near Orsay . After Count Fulko Nerra of Anjou sacked the castles of Odos in Touraine, he was forced to submit to the king around 992.

But as early as 993 Odo conspired with Bishop Adalbero of Laon in order to capture the king and his co-crowned son, Robert II , in Mouzon and to deliver to King Otto III. to deliver. But the plot was uncovered and the bishop was arrested, and the king ordered the Count of Anjou to march against Odo. He had the Donjon of Langeais built in Touraine , one of the first defensive towers made of stone. Odo hastened to form an alliance with Duke William IV of Aquitaine , husband of his sister, and the Count of Flanders and even the Duke of Normandy , in order to besiege Langeais in the winter of 995/996. When Fulko called the king to help and he appeared with an army on site, the siege had to be broken off.

In the same winter Odo fell ill and died in the abbey of Marmoutier where he was buried. He left his underage sons in a dangerous situation, which his widow encountered through a quick marriage to King Robert II. But since she was too closely related to the young king according to canon law , the marriage should be divorced again under pressure from Pope Gregory V.

Marriage and offspring

Odo married around 983/986 Bertha von Burgund († after 1010), a daughter of King Conrad III. the generous and Mathilde von Westfranken. The couple's children were:

• Theobald II († July 11, 1004), successor as Count of Blois etc.
• Odo II († November 15, 1037), succeeded his brother
• Roger († 1002), Bishop of Beauvais since 1002
• Agnes ∞ Gottfried II., Vice Count of Thouars .
• Bertha

Web links

• material collection

predecessor	Office	successor
Theobald I.	Count of Blois Count of Tours Count of Chartres Count of Châteaudun 975–995 / 996	Theobald II.
Heribert the old man	Count of Provins and Count Omois of Reims 980 / 984–995 / 996	Theobald II.