argued that this was at the expense of the family’s prospects in the Latin
East. All of this was a consequence of the death of the young Briennes’
grandmother, Queen Alice of Cyprus, in 1246. If Walter IV had still
been at liberty at the time, he would surely have received the lordship of
Jaffa, which he had held for her since the mid-1230s. Nevertheless–
and, one may infer, preciselybecause of Walter’s disappearance –
King Henry of Cyprus granted it to someone else: to the son and
namesake of the former regent of Jerusalem and Cyprus, John of
Ibelin, who now became count of Jaffa in his own right.^103 It would
seem that the king compensated John II of Brienne with Alice’slandin
Champagne, which she had received there in return for waiving her
claim to the county.^104 But this decision was challenged, in Champagne
itself, by Alice’s surviving sister, Philippa, the widow of Erard I of
Ramerupt. Since the count of Champagne was unsure about Walter
IV’s fate (and hence about the identity of the rightful Brienne inheri-
tor), Theobald IV assigned the land in question to Philippa, albeit on a
provisional basis.^105
This is not the only example of Brienne territories that seem to have
ended up in the wrong hands. A few years later, Theobald relinquished
the villages of Ville-sur-Terre, Onjon and Luyères. The latter pair,
certainly, should have been granted to the heirs of the former king of
Jerusalem and Latin emperor of Constantinople, John of Brienne.^106
Instead, though, they were granted to Walter of Reynel, to hold as
Theobald’sbailli, and he guaranteed the count of Champagne against
any legal proceedings that might be launched by Walter IV or his succes-
sors.^107 It is worth noting that this transfer took place at almost exactly
the same time that Reynel’s sister Margaret, far away in Egypt, was
arranging the honourable reinterment of Walter IV.^108
There was thus a large number of pressing reasons for John II to go to
France, to put the Briennes’affairs in order. It is unsurprising that he or
his extended family were in touch with their kinsmen in the West, well
before Johnfinally set off in the late 1250s. As a result, a bride was
waiting for him when he got there: a young widow, Mary of Enghien.
This is ourfirst encounter with the dynasty that would succeed to the
county of Brienne almost exactly a century later. As Meredith Lillich has
observed, there is every reason to believe that the marriage had been
(^103) For this, see Edbury,John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem,78–80.
(^104) ‘Catalogue’, nos. 175, 178; see also Edbury,John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem,
10580 – 1.
108 ‘Catalogue’, no. 174.^106 Ibid., no. 162.^107 Ibid., no. 176.
See Joinville,‘Life’, section 466.
Cyprus and the Holy Land 97