worth more than 100l.per annum.^16 This, then, can help to confirm
what can certainly be deduced from a variety of sources. The county of
Brienne was one of the wealthiest individual lordships in Champagne,
making its count one of the region’s most significant personages. In
terms of wealth, though (as, indeed, in so many other ways), the counts
of Brienne were not in the same league as their neighbours and suzerains,
the counts of Champagne, who swiftly emerged asfigures of real stature
throughout Latin Christendom.
The extant documentation similarly offers only tantalizing hints into
the internal workings of the county of Brienne. However, close scrutiny
of these sources means that it is possible to probe this subject in a little
more depth than has been done up until now. Surviving witness lists,
at the ends of charters, reveal something of the counts’‘inner circles’of
advisors, associates, and so on. Walter II’s charters contain rather more
of these witness lists than d’Arbois de Jubainville’s summaries suggest.^17
It remains the case, however, that we have notably more witness lists for
Erard II than we do for any previous count.^18 Taken together, these
witness lists show that, unsurprisingly, Erard’s inner circle consisted
largely of‘Briennois knights’: that is, rather lesser aristocrats who took
their toponym from a village within the county, presumably held of the
count. Among thefigures whom Erard could describe as‘milites mei’
were two of his closest confidants, Hato of Lesmont and Laurence of
Unienville.^19 (On one occasion Laurence’s name has ended up wrongly
rendered as‘Laurentius de Joinville’.)^20
One of the main reasons for working so closely with the count was, of
course, to gain from his patronage. We should not be surprised, for
example, that Erard II’s right-hand man, Hato of Lesmont, was sene-
schal of Brienne in the early 1180s.^21 By then, though, it was becoming
possible for Briennois knights to bypass their own lord, to all intents and
purposes, so as to serve more directly the suzerain count of Champagne.
(^16) T. Evergates,Feudal Society in the Bailliage of Troyes under the Counts of Champagne,
1152 – 1284 (Baltimore, 1975), 111–2.
(^17) See, for example, the full texts of‘Catalogue’, nos. 55–7 (Archives départmentales de
l’Aube, 4 H 34).
(^18) Most of Erard II’s charters can be found inCollection des principaux cartulaires du diocèse de
Troyes. Vol. iv,‘Chartes de Montiérender’, no. 84, even gives the name of one of Erard’s
cooks, Hugh.
(^19) See, for instance,Collection des principaux cartulaires du diocèse de Troyes,i,‘Cartulaire de
Saint-Loup’, nos. 56, 60, 73, 77, 103; iii,‘Cartulaire de Basse-Fontaine’, nos. 3–4, 6–7,
14, 73–4, 79; iv,‘Chartes de Montiérender’, no. 84; vii, nos. 61 and 79; and BnF, MS
20 Français 20690, fol. 182.
Collection des principaux cartulaires du diocèse de Troyes, vi,‘Chartes de Montier-la-Celle’,
21 no. 39.
Ibid., iv,‘Chartes de Montiérender’, no. 84.
14 ‘Between Bar-sur-Aube and Rosnay’(c. 950–1191)