whole was clearly located in north-western Europe, despite Walter VI’s
continued ambitions in southern Italy and Greece. Indeed, it would be
fair to observe that, just as previous generations of the family had been
dominated by the overweening power of the house of Anjou, now, by
the mid-fourteenth century, they had all come to be overshadowed by
the greatest conflict of the later Middle Ages: the Hundred Years’War
between France and England. In a sense, then, the story has come full
circle, even as it is suddenly cut off. With pardonable exaggeration, we
could say that just as France made the Briennes, it also destroyed them.
The Early Career of Walter VIFor the family of the late duke of Athens, Walter V, the events that
followed the clash at Halmyros were no less traumatic than the battle
itself. His widow, Duchess Jeanne,fled into exile at the Angevin court
of Naples, along with their two young children, Walter and Isabella. It
seems that they were still there, more than a year later, when Jeanne
appointed her father, Gaucher of Châtillon, count of Porcien and con-
stable of France, as the effective protector of the Brienne lands.^1 Clearly,
she wanted his help to assemble a grand coalition that would oust the
Catalans from Athens and restore young Walter into his father’s seat.
Although Jeanne and Gaucher soon won the backing of the new king of
Naples, Robert‘the Wise’, and of the papacy (now based, of course, in
Avignon), what they really needed was naval support.^2 By the late spring
of 1318, father and daughter had written to Venice, asking both for a
loan of 60,000florins and for ships to transport their host to Euboea, or
to the Briennes’remaining enclave at Argos and Nafplio. However, the
Venetians proved far less helpful than they had been almost a century
earlier, when John of Brienne, the future emperor of Latin Constantin-
ople, had called upon them for assistance. A withering response came
back from the doge, who noted that even the Briennes’vassals in the
Argolis had made their peace with the Company.^3 Nevertheless, the
Venetians did keep their options open by staying in touch with Gaucher,
(^1) ‘Catalogue’, no. 211 (incorrectly labelled as‘ 200 ’).
(^2) For the crystallization of papal backing, seeRegestum Clementis papae V, 8 vols. (Rome,
31885 – 92), year vii, nos. 7890–1, 8138, 8597; years viii–ix, nos. 9153, 10166–8.
There is some doubt as to the veracity of this statement. It is plausible, at least, that the
doge was using a short-lived truce, between Walter of Foucherolles and the Catalans, as a
plausible excuse for inaction. See Luttrell,‘The Latins of Argos and Nauplia’, 35.
142 Hubris and Nemesis (c. 1311–1356)