Walter who acquired the lordship of Juvanzé.^12 Moreover, we know that,
a few years later, thebailliwas acting in accordance with instructions
from Walter when he recognized the abbey of Larrivour’s rights to‘low
justice’in its daughter house of Chardonnet and in its dependencies.^13
There are also hints, in our sources, that Walter employed his patronage
in France as a way to reward those who were serving him further afield–
such as, for example, the knight Walter of Boutigny, who was granted the
river and forest of Morambert in 1352.^14 Jeanne died a few years later, on
16 January 1355, after guiding the fortunes of the family lands in France
for many years. She was buried in the Dominican church in Troyes,
where her epitaph continued to insist on her title of duchess of Athens.^15
The Coming of the Hundred Years’WarThe duchess of Athens was not the onlyfigure who was serving as a
regent, in the early fourteenth century, for a member of the extended
house of Brienne. We have already noted that John III, count of Eu and
Guînes, was killed at the battle of Courtrai in 1302. He left behind a
widow, also called Jeanne; a son, Raoul; and perhaps a daughter, Mary,
who died at a young age.^16 The choice of name for the son and heir is
particularly interesting, since it harks back not to the boy’s Brienne
predecessors, but further into the past–in fact, to the Lusignan counts
of Eu, who had held the lordship in thefirst half of the thirteenth century.
As Raoul III was still very young at the time of his father’s death, Jeanne
not only continued to rule as countess of Guînes (which, of course, was
actually hers by right), but also acted as regent of the county of Eu whilst
he grew up.^17
Although it is not clear when Raoul came of age, it may well have been
at around the time of his wedding to a third Jeanne: that is, to a daughter
of the well-connected Burgundian family of Mello, which could boast
lordships, estates and other possessions across France.^18 The marriage
produced several children, and all of them bore names that had come to
be characteristic of the house of Eu. The son and heir, the future Raoul
IV, seems to have inherited the county of Guînes directly from his
grandmother when she died in 1331.^19 Of the two daughters, one was
yet another Jeanne, who had a very interesting matrimonial career, as we
(^12) Ibid., no. 226. (^13) Ibid., no. 228. (^14) Ibid., no. 232. (^15) Ibid., no. 235.
(^16) Mary is mentioned in theChronique des comtes d’Eu, 446. (^17) Ibid., 447.
(^18) See E. Lebailly,‘Le connétable d’Eu et son cercle nobiliare: le réseau de familiers d’un
19 grand seigneur au XIVe siècle’,Cahiers de recherches médiévales13 (2006), 41.
See below,173; and also theChronique des comtes d’Eu, 447.
144 Hubris and Nemesis (c. 1311–1356)