the late 1190s. During this period, the dynasty’s greatest achievements
were the establishment of long-running cadet branches in the nearby
lordships of Bar-sur-Seine and Ramerupt. However, this focus on Cham-
pagne was mitigated–to some extent, at least–by the development of a
‘family tradition’of crusading, which allowed for the beginnings of the
dynasty’s role on a much wider stage.
It is also worth underlining the fact that the Briennes’meteoric rise
took place against a far from static backdrop. It occurred amidst a world
of‘great powers’, who were also growing in strength and authority. The
Briennes’earliest significant encounter with such a power was, of course,
with their mighty neighbour, the count of Champagne. By 1100 they had
accepted the count’s effective suzerainty, and, thereafter, they never
really disputed it again. Far more significant for the future were the
events that took place roughly a century a later, which determined the
relationship between the Briennes and the French monarchy. During this
period, the Briennes were transformed from being its opponents (in so
far as they had been anything at all) into becoming its protégés, and
finally its close kinsmen. It is not an accident that these momentous
developments were coterminous with the‘breakthrough and high point’
generation, during which Walter III and his brother, John, were looking
for support for their great enterprises outside France. Nonetheless, it
is the career of their notorious cousin, Erard I of Ramerupt, that demon-
strates that this was, indeed, a crucial period of transition, leading
towards the‘crown dominance’that was characteristic of France in the
thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. It is notable that, when Erard
set himself up to claim Champagne against the explicit wishes of Count-
ess Blanche, the French crown and the papacy, he was remarkably
successful for a brief period and, eventually, he had to be paid off.
However, it is also noteworthy that, in the end, the‘great powers’got
their way–a sign of the age that was to come.
The Briennes’experiences can also serve as an indicator of the wide
range of opportunities that were potentially available, at the very least, to
great French families in the mid-thirteenth century. It is tempting to
interpret this period as the zenith of a kind of internationalism that was
beginning to come under threat from a wide range of disparate forces.
Among these, the most important for the future was surely the formation
of more self-conscious‘national’communities. In this respect, the way
was led not so much by expansive, self-confident France but by the
troubled England of Henry III. There, the king’s clear preference for
his foreign-born kinsmen–above all, the Savoyards and the Lusignans–
aroused a resentment that Simon de Montfort and the‘baronial movement’
Conclusion 189