Earl Odda

Odda of Deerhurst (before 993 – 31 August 1056) was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman active in the period from 1013 onwards. He became a leading magnate in 1051, following the exile of Godwin, Earl of Wessex and his sons and the confiscation of their property and earldoms, when King Edward the Confessor appointed Odda as earl over a portion of the vacated territory. Earl Godwin was later restored to royal favour, and his lands returned, while Odda received a new earldom in the west midlands in compensation. Odda became a monk late in life. He was buried at Pershore Abbey.

Odda perhaps first appears in the record as a charter witness in 1013 or 1014, late in the reign of King Æthelred the Unready, from which evidence it is presumed he was born no later than 993. His brother Ælfric, commemorated in the dedication of Odda's Chapel at Deerhurst, died on 22 December 1053. Their sister, named Ealdgyth, appears in Domesday Book. She may have outlived her brothers and perhaps was still living after the Norman Conquest.

William of Malmesbury describes Odda as a kinsman of King Edward the Confessor. The writings of 16th century antiquarian John Leland contain an annal, perhaps from Pershore Abbey, which gives Odda's father's name as "Elfer", that is Ælfhere. On chronological grounds, this is unlikely to be Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia, who died in 983, although the Pershore chronicler may have believed that they were the same person. Williams proposes that Odda was a descendant, perhaps a grandson, of one of the siblings of the chronicler Ealdorman Æthelweard and Ælfgifu, wife of Edward's great-uncle King Eadwig.

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