events that followed Erard’s accession, and so the following account
should certainly be treated with caution. After Walter’s death, we are
told, the new count of Brienne quickly reverted to the family type,
violating the property and rights of Montier-en-Der. Hugh patiently gave
him many warnings (one should, perhaps, read‘threats’) before taking
up arms against him. The result was a foregone conclusion: a decisive
victory for Hugh.^51 If this is anywhere near a fair approximation of the
events of the 1090s, then it is surely best to interpret Erard’s subsequent
behaviour–when he witnessed a number of charters for his lord, Hugh,
between 1101 and 1114–as a sign of defeat and subordination to him.^52
In the end, as we shall see, Erard was able to leave Champagne with
honour, probably accompanying Hugh on the latter’s second expedition
to Jerusalem. Before journeying to the Holy City, though, Erard may well
have returned much or all that he had taken‘unjustly’from Montier-
en-Der. Such comprehensive contrition–coupled, it has to be admitted,
with a later additional sweetener–meant that, when Erard died in the
early to mid-1120s, he could be buried with his predecessors in the
abbey.^53 Although the Briennes’focus on Montier-en-Der diminished
quite sharply after this, it is worth noting that, more thanfifty years later,
Erard’s grandson and namesake, Erard II, would also make several
donations to the monastery. One was explicitly for the redemption of
his own, his father’s and his ancestors’souls.^54
However, Erard I’s later years stand remarkably alone in Brienne
family history. Admittedly, it is hard to discern what was happening
during a rather mysterious period of more thanfifteen years after 1114,
and this is a subject to which we will return. It does seem, though, that
under Erard’s successor, Walter II, it became common practice for the
Briennes to stand somewhat apart from the counts of Champagne, whilst
not repudiating their effective suzerainty. Over the course of more than
thirty years, Walter seems to have witnessed for the house of Blois only
three or four times–and this is despite going on the Second Crusade
along with the future count of Champagne, Henry I‘the Liberal’,inthe
late 1140s.^55 It is all too easy to follow Michel Bur in interpreting this
as a sign that the Briennes were being‘ostracized’within Champagne.^56
(^51) Ibid., no. 31. The precise chronology of these events has been explored in Bur,La
formation du comté de Champagne, 363 n. 86.
(^52) ‘Catalogue’, nos. 23, 26–7, 30, 32. See alsoCollection des principaux cartulaires du diocèse
de Troyes, vii,‘Cartulaire de Montiéramey’, no. 17.
(^53) ‘Catalogue’, no. 35.
(^54) Collection des principaux cartulaires du diocèse de Troyes, iv,‘Chartes de Montiérender’,
55 no. 84, and see also no. 92.
‘Catalogue’, nos. 43, 48, 52.^56 Bur,La formation du comté de Champagne, 494.
22 ‘Between Bar-sur-Aube and Rosnay’(c. 950–1191)