arranged by John’s leading kinswoman in the West, the Empress Mary of
Constantinople.^109 We may guess that the empress had met Walter IV’s
widow and his young family when she had come out to Cyprus in
1248 – 9.^110 It is possible that, through the marriage, she was trying to
detach the Enghiens from their close accord with her enemy, John of
Avesnes. If so, then the alliance was intended to serve her own purposes,
far more than those of her cousin, the bridegroom.^111 By the time that
John actually arrived in France, however, the empress was not there to
welcome him. She had run to Castile to plead for help from their
kinsman, Alfonso X. Nevertheless, the marriage went ahead as planned.
Although it produced no heirs, Mary of Enghien was still alive, and
bearing the title of countess of Brienne, as late as 1273.^112
The marriage was not the only major event that took place during
John’s brief but eventful period in France. It seems to have been a
relatively easy matter to secure investment as count and to reclaim
Alice’s land from his kinsmen, the Briennes of Ramerupt. Indeed,
Alice’s land eventually ended up in the hands of John’s successors in
both the male and the female lines. Hence,fifty years later, Joinville
could write: ‘the land given by Count Theobald to [Queen Alice of
Cyprus] is now held by the count of Brienne and the count of Joigny,
because her daughter married the great Count Walter of Brienne, and
was the grandmother of the current count’.^113 By contrast, John II faced
a number of serious difficulties when he tried to reassert direct power and
authority in Brienne itself.^114 This‘whirlwind of activity’was brutally
cut short by the young count’s early death on 17 September 1260.^115 In
January of the next year, the executors of John’swill–that is, his
kinsman, Hugh of Broyes and John, the butler of Champagne–oversaw
the fulfilment of his instructions for the foundation of a new chapel in the
abbey of Basse-Fontaine.^116 The surviving stained glass from this chapel
has been the subject of a highly entertaining article by Lillich, in which
she explores some of its most remarkable features. She has suggested that
it is entirely appropriate that the chapel was dedicated to St Catherine,
since the latter was regarded as a daughter of a king of Cyprus. In this
way, Catherine could be regarded as an obvious patron saint, or even as
a part of the family, for the young Briennes.^117 However, this may not be
(^109) Lillich,‘Gifts of the Lords of Brienne’, 183. (^110) See above, 85 – 6.
(^111) See the suggestions in J. Dunbabin,Charles I of Anjou: Power, Kingship and State-Making
in Thirteenth-Century Europe(London, 1998), 38.
(^112) See Roserot,Dictionnaire, i, 245. (^113) Joinville,‘Life’, section 88.
(^114) See‘Catalogue’, nos. 180, 182.
(^115) SeeObituaires de la province de Sens, i, part 2, 960. (^116) ‘Catalogue’, no. 183.
(^117) Lillich,‘Gifts of the Lords of Brienne’, 176–7.
98 In the Pages of Joinville (c. 1237–1267)