La Forbie, not far from Gaza. It was indeed a‘second Hattin’, compar-
able to thefirst in terms of the losses sustained.^90
As Jonathan Riley-Smith has noted, there is a great deal of information
about the battle and its aftermath, and much of it is confused and
contradictory.^91 Yet it is clear that what followed, for Walter, was a‘long
martyrdom’, and it had the effect of making him a hero.^92 This is at its
plainest in Joinville’sThe Life of Saint Louis. Joinville introduces Walter as
‘the great Count Walter of Brienne’, which some over-excited modern
commentators have magnified into‘Walter the Great’.^93 In the chronicle,
Walter is portrayed as the perfect knight–and, as we have seen, Joinville
is at pains to minimize the awkward elements that do not reallyfit. His
basic description of Walter is well worth quoting at length:
[Walter] held Jaffa for several years, and defended it for a long time through his
own vigour. He lived in large part off what he had won from the Saracens and
enemies of the faith. On one occasion, he overcame a great number of Saracens
who were carrying cloth of gold and silk. He seized it all and, when he had
brought it back to Jaffa, he shared everything among his knights so that there was
none left for himself. It was his habit, once he had parted from his knights, to shut
himself in his chapel and spend a long time in prayer before going down to lie
with his wife...she was a very virtuous and wise woman...the sister of the king
of Cyprus...^94
Walter’s fate is described in great detail by Joinville, in an obviousExkurs
in his book. The chronicler begins by emphasizing why it should be
recorded:‘because it is a good thing that the memory of the count of
Brienne, who was count of Jaffa [sic], is not forgotten’. But Joinville’s
account of La Forbie is well below his best. He skews the tale around the
exploits of a Persian emperor, Barbaquan (which is actually a corrupted
version of the name of the Khwarazmian commander, Berke Khan).
According to Joinville, Walter had a leading role on the battlefield, urging
his fellow Franks to attack the enemy at once, before the latter could get
organized:‘My lords, for God’s sake, let’s go at them–we’re giving them
time by halting!’However, Walter’s advice was ignored once again, and
so defeat followed with gloomy predictability. The count was captured
(^90) For a brief summary of these events, see Edbury,John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of
Jerusalem,67–78.
(^91) See J. S. C. Riley-Smith’s comments inAyyubids, Mamlukes and Crusaders: Selections from
theTārīkh al-Duwal wa’l-Mulūkof Ibn al-Fūrat, tr. U. and M. C. Lyons, 2 vols.
(Cambridge, 1971), ii, pp. 174–5.
(^92) De Sassenay,Brienne, 131.
(^93) Joinville,‘Life’, section 88. See also Roserot,Dictionnaire, i, 245, and the family tree in
94 the introductory volume, no. 3.
Adapted from Joinville,‘Life’, section 527.
94 In the Pages of Joinville (c. 1237–1267)