Brienne Family

A great French aristocratic family that provided rulers for the kingdom of Jerusalem, the Latin Empire of Constantinople, and the duchy of Athens.

The lords of Brienne were vassals of the counts of Champagne, holding lands near Troyes. The family had a long tradition of crusading. Erard I took the cross in 1097. His son Walter II took part in the Second Crusade (1147-1149), as did his son Erard II, who also joined the Third Crusade in 1189 and took part in the siege of Acre. Walter III originally agreed to go on the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) in the army of the count of Champagne, but he was allowed to substitute service in southern Italy against Markward of Anweiler, a move that enabled him to press the claims of his wife, Elvira, to the county of Lecce and the principality of Taranto. His younger brother John was perhaps the most famous member of the family to involve himself in the crusading movement. He became king of Jerusalem in right of his wife, Maria (1210-1212), and regent of Jerusalem for his daughter Isabella II (1212-1225). Later he served as marshal of the papal armies in Italy opposed to his own son-in-law Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, and subsequently he became co-ruler of the Latin Empire of Constantinople (1230-1237) along with Emperor Baldwin II.

John’s nephew Walter IV, count of Brienne and Lecce (1205-1250), became count of Jaffa in 1221. Thereafter the family interests became centered in Frankish Greece. Hugh of Brienne (1250-1296) was influential at the Angevin court of Naples. He married first Isabella of La Roche (1277) and subsequently Helena Doukaina, the widow of his former brother-in-law, William of La Roche (1291), and thereby became bailli (regent) of the duchy of Athens for his stepson Guy. On the latter’s death in 1309, Hugh’s own son Walter V of Brienne became duke of Athens (as Walter I). He was killed at the battle of Halmyros against the Catalan Company in 1311 and was thus the last French duke of Athens. His son Walter VI was titular duke of Athens (as Walter II) until his death, fighting against the English as constable of France at Poitiers in 1356. In 1331-1332 he mounted a considerable campaign against the Catalans, but they refused to give battle. The cost effectively ruined the Brienne family. His only child, also called Walter, predeceased him in 1332.

-Peter Lock

See also: Athens, Lordship and Duchy of; Jerusalem, (Latin) Kingdom of

Bibliography

Arbois de Jubainville, Henri d’, “Catalogue d’Actes des comtes de Brienne (950-1356),” Bibliotheque de I’Ecole des Chartes 33 (1872), 141-186.

Buckley, John, “The Problematical Octogenarianism of John de Brienne,” Speculum 32 (1957), 315-322.

Lock, Peter, The Franks in the Aegean (London: Longman, 1995).

Longon, Jean, “The Frankish States in Greece, 1204-1311,” in A History of the Crusades, 2d ed., ed. Kenneth M.

Setton (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969),

2: 235-276.

Funeral monument of John of Brienne, Assisi. (Scala/Art Resource)

Nielen, Marie-Adela'ide, “Du comte de Champagne aux royaumes d’Orient: Sceaux et armoiries des comtes de Brienne,” in Chemins d’outre-mer: Etudes sur la Mediterranee medievale offertes a Michel Balard, ed. Damien Coulon, Catherine Otten-Froux, Paul Pages, and

Dominique Valerian, 2 vols. (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2004), 2:589-606.

Sassenay, Ferdinand de, Les Brienne de Lecce et d’Athenes (Paris, 1869).

Setton, Kenneth M., The Papacy and the Levant 1

(Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976). Wolff, Robert L., “The Latin Empire of Constantinople, 1204-1261,” in A History of the Crusades, 2d ed., ed. Kenneth M. Setton (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 2:187-274.