‘Minstrel of Reims’, and they have been taken at face value rather too
often.^17 Yet Blanche and her son, the French king Louis IX, clearlywere
prepared to do a great deal to help their young Brienne kinsmen. William
of Nangis records that the Emperor John of Constantinople‘[had] asked
King Louis...and his pious mother Queen Blanche...to have and
receive his sons’, and the emperor got his wish. The boys were‘honour-
ably and graciously received and dearly loved’by the future saint, who
raised them‘very high’.^18
It is not surprising, then, that the Brienne brothers participated in the
French king’sfirst crusade, which began a decade or so after their arrival
at court. Joinville briefly mentions the presence of the younger two, Louis
and John of Brienne.^19 He has much more to say about Alfonso, how-
ever, whom he normally refers to as the‘count of Eu’(after the title that
the latter soon inherited). Alfonso was‘still a squire’during the crusade,
and he was knighted by King Louis some time later.^20 Despite his youth,
though, Alfonso played a prominent part in both the Egyptian and the
Holy Land phases of the expedition.^21 Indeed, he was quickly becoming
the kind of lord to whom lesserfigures looked for advancement. During
the crusade, Joinville took a poor knight’s son into his own service, who
ended up in Alfonso’s retinue:
[This] boy served the count [of Eu] so well and so loyally that when we returned
to France, the count arranged a marriage for him and made him a knight. And
every time the count and I happened to be in the same place, the young man
could barely tear himself away from me. He said to me,‘My lord, may God
reward you, for it was you who placed me in this honourable position.’^22
However, Joinville records much more than this. He tells us something
about the friendship that existed between himself and Alfonso, two
young men together in the great adventure of their lives. For instance,
we are told that whilst the crusaders were refortifying Sidon, King Louis
assigned Joinville a place in his camp‘alongside the count of Eu, since he
knew that the count enjoyed my company’.^23 Indeed, we even hear a
little about‘the pranks [that] the count used to play on us’–that is, the
kinds of detail that make Joinville’s account seem so much more real and
alive than most other chronicles. According to Joinville, when the cru-
saders were lodging side by side, Alfonso had a little catapult that he used
tofire when Joinville and his men were eating, causing comedic havoc
on the dinner table. Similarly, when Alfonso somehow acquired a small
(^17) Récits d’un ménestrel de Reims, ch. 41. (^18) William of Nangis,Chronicon, 550.
(^19) See Joinville,‘Life’, sections 140, 521. (^20) Ibid., section 521.
(^21) Seeibid., sections 569–81. (^22) Ibid., section 596. (^23) Ibid., section 582.
Across the Latin West 79