4 The Angevins and Athens (c. 1267–1311)
The events of the mid-1260s constitute a watershed in the relationship
between France and the Mediterranean. In 1265, Charles of Anjou,
the brother of the French king Louis IX, crossed into Italy as the
designated papal champion againstthe hated house of Hohenstaufen.
To a certain extent, therefore, Charles had taken over the mantle once
worn by various members of the Brienne family. As befitted a true
political heavy-weight, however, Charles’s achievements soon cast
Walter III and John of Brienne into the shade. Charles quickly wrested
the kingdom of Sicily from his rival, Manfred, who fell at Benevento on
26 February 1266. This battle marks the beginning of Angevin rule in
the southern Italian mainland, which would last until thefifteenth
century (although the island of Sicily itself was soon torn from their
grasp, as we shall see). In fact, right up until the end of the Middle Ages
and beyond, Charles’s heirs and their realm in the South would act like
a kind of magnet for French ambitions in the Mediterranean, dragging a
wide range of other matters into its orbit–including, to some extent,
the crusading movement itself.
These developments had an enormous impact on the Angevins’close
kinsmen, the various far-flung members of the extended house of
Brienne, both in the Mediterranean and, to a lesser degree, elsewhere.
(SeeGenealogy 5for the relationship between the French crown, the
Angevins and the Briennes.) In short, the Angevins imposed a kind of
unityonmostofthedisparatestoriesthatwerefollowedintheprevious
chapter. By the early 1270s at the latest, all of the Briennes in the
Mediterranean had come to pin their hopes on the rewards of service
to the house of Anjou. Whilst such service rarely achieved what the
Briennes really wanted, it did open a large number of doors to them,
and not just in the most obvious place, the family’soldhuntingground
of southern Italy. Most notably, it revealed a path to the duchy of
Athens, which served as a main focus for the senior line of the house
of Brienne for a very long time. Yet it is worth stressing that, whilst
service to the Angevins could bring such benefits, it also brought with it
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