Odo the Good Marquis

Who is Odo the Good Marquis?

Odo the Good Marquis was an Italo-Norman nobleman who ruled an unknown region of southern Italy. He married Emma, a daughter of Robert Guiscard, and they had at least three sons, Tancred and William, both famous crusaders, and Robert, as well as a daughter who married Richard of Salerno. Odo is known only in connexion to his wife and sons.

There are many sources that identify Tancred's father as a margrave —which is enough to confirm that he was an Italian—but do not name him. Many further identify a brother named William who was also a "marquis's son". According to William of Tyre, "Tancred [was] the son of William the Marquis", but the Latin word filium is probably an error by later copyists where originally it read fratrem. That Tancred possessed a brother named William is affirmed by the Gesta Dei per Francos, which records a "William, son of the marquis, brother of Tancred" among the followers of their uncle, Bohemond of Taranto, on the First Crusade. In that same document Tancred is referred to only as "the marquis's son". Robert the Monk, listing the crusaders who accompanied Bohemond, mentions "the most noble princes, namely Tancred, his [i.e., Bohemond's] nephew and the marquis's son. . .", confirming his father's rank but not his name. The archbishop Baldric of Dol records, with more proper Latin, that Tancred was Robert Guiscard's grandson and the son of a marquis. He also calls Tancred's brother William a marquis. Guibert of Nogent, expressing some doubt that he has all his information correct, says that Tancred was the son of a certain marquis, accompanied his uncle Bohemond on the First Crusade, and that his brother William accompanied Hugh the Great.