bishops were so energetic in the suppression of simony and violations of clerical vows; nowhere was the church so completely subject to the secular government.
The most prominent figure in the Norman church of the eleventh century, Odo, for nearly fifty years bishop of Bayeux, was far from fulfilling the stricter ideal of a prelate's life. Half-brother of the Conqueror through their mother Arlette, he received the bishopric as a family gift at the tender age of fourteen and became thereby one of the greatest princes of Normandy. His hundred and twenty knights' fees furnished him a body of powerful vassals; his demesne gave him manors and forests for the support of his household, fuel for his fires and reeds and rushes for his hall, rents and tithes at Caen and the monopoly of the mill at Bayeux, tolls and fines and market rights which produced a considerable income in ready money. For the invasion of England he is said to have offered a hundred ships, and he took an active part in the battle of Hastings, swinging a huge mace in place of spear and sword, since the shedding of blood was forbidden to an ecclesiastic. In the distribution which followed, Odo received large estates in the southeast, as well as the earldom of Kent and the custody of Dover Castle, and he seems to have ruled his lands with a heavy hand both as earl and as regent in William's absence. It even became his ambition to succeed the mighty Hildebrand as Pope, and he had already spent considerable sums at Rome when William, accusing
