Odo, Count of Champagne

Odo, Count of Champagne (ca. 1040–1115),^[1] was Count of Troyes and of Meaux from 1047 to 1066, then Count of Aumale from 1069 to 1115.^[2]

Biography

Odo was the son of Stephen II of Troyes and Meaux, and Adele. 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, 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 (named after her mother) her mother (Adelaide of Normandy) became her heir and hence through his marriage Odo acquired the title Count (or Earl) of Aumale in Normandy 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, For his services to William, William gave Odo Holderness in Yorkshire.^[3] Implicated in a plot against the King William Rufus, he was imprisoned in 1095.

Family

Odo had one son with Adelaide: Stephen, Count of Aumale (died 1127).^[4]

Richard Langrishe (1900) rejected an older theory that Raymond FitzGerald (died 1185/1198) was the primogenitor of the Irish family of Le Gras (Grace).^[5] Two years later he published another paper in which he put forward the theory that Odo was the primogenitor.^[3] 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.^[6][7]

Notes

References

• Barlow, Frank (1983), William Rufus (illustrated ed.), University of California Press, p. 272, ISBN 0520049365 
• Bates, David (Sept 2004), "Odo, earl of Kent (d. 1097)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/20543, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20543, retrieved 23 August 2010 
• Flanagan, M. T. (September 2004), "Fitzgerald, Raymond fitz William (d. 1189x92)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9582, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9582, retrieved 24 August 2010 
• Langrishe, Richard (31 December 1900), "The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland", The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 5 30 (4): 319–324, JSTOR 25507087 
• Langrishe, Richard (31 March 1902), "The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland", 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 .