branches of Bar-sur-Seine and Ramerupt. Yet what little there is can
serve a useful purpose. It can challenge the notion that the early stages in
the growth of Champenois comital power were somehow consensual and
co-operative–in a word,‘collegial’.^47 Like virtually every other form of
secular lordship constructed during this period, the nascent county
of Champagne was built in the last resort, on force. This is something
that was quite obvious to the Briennes, as we can see when we turn to
examine the situation of the two dynasties in the 1070s or so.
During that decade, the keyfigure in the Champagne region as a
whole was Theobald III of Blois, count of Troyes and Meaux. The
Briennes represented a classic‘test case’for his power–especially after
Walter I had inherited the lordship of Bar-sur-Seine too, so building up
a substantial powerbase just to the east of Troyes. Religious rights could
provide an excellent pretext for interference into the internal affairs
of lords whom one wanted to treat as vassals, and a particularlyfine
example of this was ready and waiting for Theobald. The 1070s had
proved a particularly torrid time for the monks of Montier-en-Der, who
had fallen back on deploying forged papal documents to try to protect
themselves against predatory lords, many of whom they had once
regarded as their benefactors.^48 Walter was arguably the leadingfigure
in this category. He and the monks duly clashed over the rights and dues
that the count could claim as a consequence of the abbey’spropertyand
other possessions within his territories. Theobald seized this opportunity
with both hands, presenting himself, as he so often did, as a champion
of ecclesiastical reform. He served as the guarantor of a deal thrashed
out between Montier-en-Der and Walter, although that did not stop
Theobald from urging the papal legate, Hugh of Die, to excommunicate
him. At the council of Meaux, in 1082, the legate pronounced the
sentence, but it may not have been executed, since Walter seems to
have backed down and accepted Theobald’sruling.^49 A seal was set on
Theobald’s success by Walter’s death before the decade was over, which
split Brienne and Bar-sur-Seine for good. Moreover, it would seem that
Walter’s heir at Brienne, Erard I, was obliged to accept investiture, as
count, at the hands of Theobald himself.^50
Yet this was merely thefirst round. Brienne’s struggle for effective
independence really ended under Theobald’s eventual successor, his
younger son Hugh, thefirst to actually style himself‘count of Cham-
pagne’. We have only Hugh’s side of the story to guide us through the
(^47) For the classic statement of this view, see Evergates,Aristocracy,5–31.
(^48) See Bouchard’s introduction toThe Cartulary of Montier-en-Der, pp. 22–3.
(^49) ‘Catalogue’, nos. 13–14. (^50) Ibid., no. 31.
The Shadow of Troyes 21