Odilo, also Oatilo or Uatilo (died 18th January 748) of the Agilolfing dynasty was

Duke of Bavaria The following is a list of rulers during the history of Bavaria. Bavaria was ruled by several dukes and kings, partitioned and reunited, under several dynasties. Since 1949, Bavaria has been a democratic state in the Federal Republic of Germ ...

from 737 until his death in 748. He had the ''

Lex Baiuvariorum The ''Lex Baiuvariorum'' was a collection of the tribal laws of the Bavarii of the sixth through eighth centuries. The first compilation was edited by Eberswind, first abbot of Niederaltaich, in 741 or 743. Duke Odilo, founder supplemented th ...

'' compilation edited, the first

ancient Germanic law Germanic law is a scholarly term used to described a series of commonalities between the various law codes (the ''Leges Barbarorum'', 'laws of the barbarians', also called Leges) of the early Germanic peoples. These were compared with statements ...

collection of the

Bavarians Bavarians ( Bavarian: ''Boarn'', Standard German: ''Baiern'') are an ethnographic group of Germans of the Bavaria region, a state within Germany. The group's dialect or speech is known as the Bavarian language, native to Altbayern ("Old Bavar ...

. Odilo by his Agilolfing descent was an

Alemanni The Alemanni or Alamanni, were a confederation of Germanic tribes * * * on the Upper Rhine River. First mentioned by Cassius Dio in the context of the campaign of Caracalla of 213, the Alemanni captured the in 260, and later expanded into pres ...

c nobleman, a son of Duke Gotfrid (d. 709) whom he succeeded in

Thurgau Thurgau (; french: Thurgovie; it, Turgovia), anglicized as Thurgovia, more formally the Canton of Thurgau, is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of five districts and its capital is Frauenfeld. Thurgau is par ...

until 737, when with the death of Hugbert of Bavaria the older line of the dynasty became extinct and he inherited the rulership of the

Duchy of Bavaria The Duchy of Bavaria (German: ''Herzogtum Bayern'') was a frontier region in the southeastern part of the Merovingian kingdom from the sixth through the eighth century. It was settled by Bavarian tribes and ruled by dukes (''duces'') under ...

. Odilo presided over the establishment of bishoprics in Bavaria in 739, when the four dioceses of

Regensburg Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the ...

Freising Freising () is a university town in Bavaria, Germany, and the capital of the Freising ''Landkreis'' (district), with a population of about 50,000. Location Freising is the oldest town between Regensburg and Bolzano, and is located on the ...

Passau Passau (; bar, label= Central Bavarian, Båssa) is a city in Lower Bavaria, Germany, also known as the Dreiflüssestadt ("City of Three Rivers") as the river Danube is joined by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north. Passau's po ...

, and

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

were established by St. Boniface, who in 741 also founded the

Diocese of Würzburg In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

in adjacent

Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper ...

. His measures sparked a revolt by Bavarian nobles and the duke temporarily had to seek refuge at the court of the Frankish Mayor of the Palace

Charles Martel Charles Martel ( – 22 October 741) was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the de facto ruler of Francia from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesm ...

. In 741, Odilo married Charles Martel's daughter Hiltrud, but upon the death of her father found himself at war with her brothers Carloman and

Pepin the Short the Short (french: Pépin le Bref; – 24 September 768), also called the Younger (german: Pippin der Jüngere), was King of the Franks from 751 until his death in 768. He was the first Carolingian to become king. The younger was the son of ...

. He rebelled to support the Alamans with the support of Hunald I of Aquitaine in 742/43 against Frankish rule after persuading him to attack

Neustria Neustria was the western part of the Kingdom of the Franks. Neustria included the land between the Loire and the Silva Carbonaria, approximately the north of present-day France, with Paris, Orléans, Tours, Soissons as its main cities. It late ...

to burn down

Chartres Chartres () is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 170,763 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Chartres (as def ...

. He was finally defeated in 743 after a battle at the

river Lech The Lech (, ''Licca'') is a river in Austria and Germany. It is a right tributary of the Danube in length with a drainage basin of . Its average discharge at the mouth is . Its source is located in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg, where the ...

, and had to accept Frankish overlordship over Bavaria, but remained duke. He further consolidated his rule, when he came to the aid of Prince

Boruth Boruth, also Borut (from cu, borъ, "fighter") or Borouth, (died about 750) was the first documented Slavic prince (''Knyaz'') of Carantania, ruling from about 740 until his death. He was one of the few pagan leaders of the Carantanians to conver ...

Carantania Carantania, also known as Carentania ( sl, Karantanija, german: Karantanien, in Old Slavic '), was a Slavic principality that emerged in the second half of the 7th century, in the territory of present-day southern Austria and north-eastern ...

against repeated Avar incursions and was able to vassalize the Slavic principality in the southeast. After his death in 748, Grifo, a younger son of Charles Martel and half-brother of Odilo's widow Hiltrud, sought to establish his own rule in Bavaria and abducted Odilo's son Tassilo III. However, the next year he was defeated by Pepin the Short who installed seven-year-old Tassilo III as Duke of Bavaria. Odilo is accepted as the founder of the abbeys of

Benediktbeuern Benediktbeuern (Central Bavarian: ''Benediktbeiern'') is a municipality in the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen in Bavaria, Germany, 2 kilometers, or 1.25 miles from Bichl. The village has 3,602 residents as of 31 December 2019. The medieva ...

(in 739), Niederaltaich (741), and Mondsee (748), as well as a number of others. He was buried at

Gengenbach Abbey Gengenbach Abbey (german: Kloster Gengenbach) was a Benedictine monastery in Gengenbach in the district of Ortenau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was an Imperial Abbey from the late Carolingian period to 1803. History It was founded by Sai ...

Alamannia Alamannia, or Alemannia, was the kingdom established and inhabited by the Alemanni, a Germanic tribal confederation that had broken through the Roman '' limes'' in 213. The Alemanni expanded from the Main River basin during the 3rd century a ...

References

Sources

* Borgolte Michael, ''Die Grafen Alemanniens in merowingischer und karolingischer Zeit. Eine Prosopographie'', Jan Thorbecke Verlag Sigmaringen 1986. * Borgolte Michael, ''Geschichte der Grafschaften Alemanniens in fränkischer Zeit'', Jan Thorbecke Verlag Sigmaringen 1984. * Geuenich, Dieter, ''Geschichte der Alemannen'',

Kohlhammer Verlag W. Kohlhammer Verlag GmbH, or Kohlhammer Verlag, is a German publishing house headquartered in Stuttgart. History Kohlhammer Verlag was founded in Stuttgart on 30 April 1866 by . Kohlhammer had taken over the businesses of his late father-in-l ...

Stuttgart Berlin Köln 1997. * Couser, Johnathan (2010). "The Changing Fortunes of Early Medieval Bavaria to 907 AD". ''History Compass''. 8 (4): P. 333. * Wood, Ian (1993). ''The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751''. Taylor & Francis Group.

ISBN The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency. An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition a ...

9780582493728 {{Authority control 748 deaths 8th-century dukes of Bavaria Agilolfings Year of birth unknown Baiuvarii