Piety and PlunderMuch of the Briennes’relationship with the Church remains clouded in
mystery. Tantalising details emerge, here and there, in the extant char-
ters. For instance, we can name several of their personal chaplains, such
as a certain Nicholas, who seems to have passed his entire career in the
family’s service.^64 Owing to the nature of the surviving sources, though,
we can know far more about the Briennes’dealings with certain monastic
houses than we can about any other subject.
Michel Bur has observed that the eleventh- and twelfth-century counts
of Brienne warrant a prominent place on a list of‘dangerous neigh-
bours’, whom nearby monasteries had either to conciliate or to actively
oppose.^65 The monks of Montier-en-Der would certainly have agreed
with this judgement. As his dealings with the family’s ancestral abbey
soured, though, Walter I may well have shifted to focus his attention on
a new and intensely admired foundation: the monastery of Molesme.
It is worth noting, though, that Walter was connected to this abbey far
more as count of Bar-sur-Seine than he was as a Brienne. Walter’s heir at
Brienne, Erard I, did much to re-establish Montier-en-Der as the senior
line’s favourite monastery, but he did not ignore Molesme either. He
witnessed several donations to the abbey, as well as giving it rights of
pasturage andusagein his forests.^66 It is not surprising, though, that his
brother, Count Milo II of Bar-sur-Seine, did far more. Most importantly,
Milo founded a priory at Jully, just to the south of Bar-sur-Seine, which
he placed under Molesme’s authority. Milo’s kinsmen, the counts of
Brienne, moved quickly to support the new enterprise, as various little-
known charters attest. It is also worth noting the role of Milo’s daughter-
in-law, variously known as Petronilla or Elizabeth of Chacenay, who
established another daughter house at Manteau, not far away.^67
The late eleventh and early twelfth centuries constituted a veritable
‘golden age’of monastic foundation. Indeed, this was something that
could be doneen bloc, as a kind of spiritual fraternity. It seems that Erard
I was a leading light in a group–which included no less afigure than the
count of Champagne himself–which co-operated to establish an abbey
(^64) Nicholas isfirst mentioned in Walter II’s day, and hence before 1160 (see Archives
départementales de l’Aube, 4 H 34). It seems that Nicholas was still at Brienne at the end
of the century, serving as chaplain to Walter’s widowed daughter-in-law, Countess
Agnes (‘Catalogue’, no. 116).
(^65) Mildly adapting Bur,La formation du comté de Champagne, 347.
(^66) ‘Catalogue’, nos. 21–2, 25–7, 33–4.
(^67) Cartulaire du prieuré de Jully-les-Nonnains, pp. 1–4, 16, 30; see also the summary in
Roserot,Dictionnaire, 109.
24 ‘Between Bar-sur-Aube and Rosnay’(c. 950–1191)