THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



his brother ^Ifric, who had died there in 1053 and who was simi- 

 larly buried at Pershore.^ Having now seen that earl Odda was estab- 

 lished at Deerhurst as at Longdon, we may follow up the clue given 

 by the Pershore annals, and ask whether we cannot connect him with 

 the great transfer to Westminster of lands formerly held by Pershore. 

 That ' most wicked earl, Delfer,' of whom, said the monks, he was 

 the heir, was no other than JEKhere, ealdorman of Mercia {d. 983), 

 who had led the anti-monastic reaction after the death of Eadgar (d. 

 975), and of whom the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that he 'com- 

 manded the monasteries to be demolished, which king Eadgar had be- 

 fore commanded the holy bishop ^thelwold to found,' 



' and monks expelled 

 and God's servants persecuted.' ^ 



If, as stated in the Pershore annals, it was he who despoiled the abbey 

 of so large a portion of its lands, we understand how Longdon, which 

 Eadgar had confirmed to the house, came to be found in the hands 

 of his heir, earl Odda. It seems therefore to me possible that what 

 really happened was that, on Odda's death (1056), king Edward 

 seized all his lands, as he left no heir, and refused to recognise his 

 undertaking to restore the Pershore manors.^ The king would thus be 

 able to bestow them on his new foundation. Although Longdon is the 

 only manor that Domesday names as having been Odda's, the great 

 record was not concerned with a man who had died thirty years before 

 it was compiled, and his estates were probably of wide extent. The 

 above suggestion is but tentative, although it is quite in harmony with 

 what we elsewhere read of the fate, especially in Worcestershire, of 

 monastic lands. When they had been held for a time by laymen, the 

 monks' claim had little weight ; possession then, as now, was ' nine points 

 of the law.' 



Apart from his distinct connection with Pershore Abbey and its 

 lands, earl Odda has a claim on the historian of Worcestershire if, as 

 Mr. Freeman thought, he was the local earl in the last years of his life.* 

 But the fact that he attested three charters of Ealdred bishop of 

 Worcester seems to be insufficient ground for this belief, seeing that, 

 in all three cases, earl Leofric attests before him. Odda obtained his 

 earldom, which was that of the south-western counties, during the 

 ascendancy of the Normanizing party in 105 1—2 ; a kinsman of the 

 king he supported him warmly against earl Godwine and was chosen, 

 with earl Ralf of Hereford, to command the king's fleet in 1052. Al- 

 though sometimes styled ' Odo,' he was doubtless a native, as Mr. 

 Freeman held,^ though I do not agree with that writer that he bore the 



* Florence of Worcester, I. 211. ^ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, II. 99. 



' The Pershore annals state that he refrained from marriage in order that he might have 

 no heir to claim them. He very possibly bargained that the lands should remain his for life. 



* ' His connection with the Hwiccian land and its monasteries points to Worcestershire, 

 or possibly Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, as the district under his charge.' {Norman 

 Conqueit [1870], II. 565-6.) * Ibid. pp. 564-5. 



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