This is highly significant, since it shows that there was continued contact
between the senior line and the Ramerupt cadet branch.^149
Hugh was back in Italy to welcome his lord, Charles of Salerno, when
the latter was released, at long last, from Aragonese captivity. Hugh was
among those in attendance when Charles was crowned by the pope, at
Rieti, in May 1289. Not all that long afterwards, it seems, Hugh was
appointed butler of the realm.^150 Although the newly crowned Charles
II made a brief effort to continue with the war, he quickly arranged a
two-year truce with his former captor, King Alfonso III of Aragon. It
was Hugh himself, though, who made the most fascinating proposal at
around this time. It seems that he offered to cede his claim to Cyprus to
Alfonso. Atfirst sight, it has to be admitted, this looks like a bizarre act
of betrayal. It can make sense, however, as Elena Lourie has shown. She
is surely quite right to suggest that Charles‘knew of and condoned’
Hugh’s offer to Alfonso. It was all part and parcel of the quest for a
permanent peace. The Aragonese would be compensated with Cyprus
in return for Sicily–and, of course, Hugh could hope that his son and
heir, Walter, would soon be released.^151 Although Alfonso wisely
rejected this chimeric proposal, we should not dismiss these develop-
ments as a mere curiosity. Henceforth, the Brienne claim to Cyprus
would play a significant part both in efforts to end the War of the
Vespers and in plans for the future of the Latin East. In thefinal peace
treaty of Caltabellotta, for example, it was agreed that the count of
Brienne would be induced to part with his claim so that the Aragonese
could have the island.^152 Indeed, the prospect of an Iberian takeover
was still on the cards as late as 1322, thanks to a marriage alliance
between Alfonso’s successor, James II, and Mary of Lusignan, the
daughter of Hugh’s hated rival, the king of Cyprus and Jerusalem.^153
Moreover, in the postscript of Pierre Dubois’sDe recuperatione Terrae
Sanctae (a classic example of the‘recovery literature’ of the early
1320s), it is suggested that the count of Brienne should‘follow up the
(^149) See the following document in the BnF: MS Français 20690, fol. 213.
(^150) RCA, xxxvi, reg. 29, no. 306 (‘bucticulario Regni’); and xl, reg. 36, no. 156
(‘fructicularius’). It is also worth noting xxxii, reg. 15, no. 498, in which Hugh is
mistakenly described as‘count of Brindisi’.
(^151) E. Lourie,‘An Offer of the Suzerainty and Escheat of Cyprus to Alphonso III of Aragon
by Hugh de Brienne in 1289’,English Historical Review, vol. lxxxiv, no. 330 (1969),
152101 – 8.
153 Ibid., 107.
For the marriage, see Edbury,The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 136–9.
132 The Angevins and Athens (c. 1267–1311)