In short, the Briennes had become a highly important dynasty by the
mid-thirteenth century. However, there were so many of them, and they
were so far-flung, that even someone like Joinville does not always get his
facts right, or manage to be quite clear about them. The present chapter
will try to put this right. It will follow the different branches of the family
in a range of geographical settings, highlighting their contact with one
another (above all, through Louis IX’s crusade to Egypt and the Holy
Land). We will begin in the Briennes’old heartland of Champagne, with
Joinville’s‘famous lineage’: the cadet branch of Ramerupt.
The Champenois RemnantAs we have already seen, Erard I of Ramerupt had children by his shadowy
first wife, Helisende. But these potential heirs fade out of the picture after
Erard’s subsequent marriage to Philippa of Champagne. From then on, it
was on her, and his‘second family’,thatErard’s plans for the future were
predicated. Philippa gave her husband two sons and six daughters. Since
she had little land of her own, it was Erard’s inheritance that had to be split
between the sons. Thus, it may well have been the eldest, bearing the
family name of Erard, who succeeded to Ramerupt, whilst the lesser
lordship of Venizy passed to the second son, Henry (a name that recalled
Philippa’s father, Count Henry II of Champagne).^3
We can know only a little about the brief career of Erard II of Ramer-
upt. In July 1248, not long after succeeding to the lordship, Erard
renounced various rights that had come to him through a deal between
his father and the abbey of Montiéramey.^4 This laudable concession was
surely a part of Erard’s preparations to participate in thefirst crusade of
the French king, Louis IX, which began in the same year. Erard took part
along with his younger brother, Henry, but the crusade brought together
many more members of the family than that. Joinville tells us that, during
the crusaders’long pause on Cyprus in the winter of 1248–9, Mary of
Brienne, empress of Constantinople, arrived at Paphos and summoned
her kinsmen, Erard of Ramerupt and Joinville himself, to collect her.^5
Joinville seems to have been closely involved with Erard in the early
stages of the expedition. After Henry of Venizy’s premature death, it
seems, the hostfinally moved on to invade Egypt in July 1249. Erard and
Joinville were amongst thefirst ashore at Damietta. If Joinville’s account
(^3) See d’Arbois de Jubainville,‘Les premiers seigneurs de Ramerupt’, 450.
(^4) Collection des principaux cartulaires du diocèse de Troyes, vii,‘Cartulaire de Montiéramey’,
5 no. 385.
Joinville,‘Life’, section 137.
76 In the Pages of Joinville (c. 1237–1267)