piece of vair. I also sent some tiretaine andcendalto line the dress. My lord Philip
of Nanteuil...who was in the king’s entourage, came across my squire as he was
going to the empress. When [Philip] saw the garments, he went to the king and
told him that I had deeply shamed him and the other barons...[since] they had
not been aware of her need.
But Mary was after much more than assistance with her wardrobe.
The empress had come to ask for aid...for her husband, who had stayed in
Constantinople, and she was so intent on this that she took away a hundred or
more duplicate letters from me and her other friends...these letters bound us on
oath to go to Constantinople, should the king or the legate wish to send
300 knights there after the king had departed from [the Latin East].
Indeed, we hear that Joinville reiterated his vow to King Louis at the
end of the crusade, in the presence of Mary’s brother, Alfonso.^52 By
then, though, it was quite clear that no 300 knights would be forthcom-
ing. This became painfully obvious not only to Mary but also to her
husband Baldwin, who dropped in on the crusade during the Egyptian
campaign.^53
The empress and her brother, John, returned directly to France whilst
the rest of the crusader host pressed on to Damietta.^54 The notoriously
untrustworthy‘Minstrel of Reims’claims that Mary stayed with her
great-aunt, Blanche (who was serving, once again, as regent of France),
until the queen mother died in 1252.^55 Whilst there is a great deal that
can be criticized in the Minstrel’s account, this does seem tofit with
what little evidence that we have.^56 Soon after Blanche’s death, it seems,
Mary moved to Namur, and there were sound reasons for doing so. The
political temperature was steadily rising in the region, thanks to a long-
running dispute between the rival houses of Avesnes and Dampierre
for the succession to their common progenitor, Countess Margaret
of Flanders and Hainault. As early as 1248, John of Avesnes, count of
Hainault (and therefore suzerain of Namur), had tried to seize the
marquisate, but he had been foiled by the prompt action of the pope
and the French regent, Queen Blanche. Now that Blanche was safely
dead, John formally granted Namur to Count Henry of Luxemburg,
whose family had long nursed a claim to it. Unsurprisingly, this produced
a conflict that quickly dragged in a large number of interested powers,
including John of Avesnes’brother-in-law, the German king William of
(^52) Mildly adapted from Joinville,‘Life’, sections 137–40.
(^53) ‘Régestes des empereurs latins de Constantinople’, no. 254.
(^54) Joinville,‘Life’, section 140.
(^55) Récits d’un ménestrel de Reims au treizième siècle, ch. 41.
(^56) See‘Régestes des empereurs latins de Constantinople’, no. 258.
86 In the Pages of Joinville (c. 1237–1267)