increasingly rapacious lordship caused most problems, though, with the
Cistercian house of Larrivour. The Briennes had been benefactors to this
monastery ever since its very earliest days.^88 It seems that, when Erard II
and Larrivour locked horns, they did so over one of the family’sveryfirst
donations to the abbey, in which Walter II had ceded the right ofusagein
his forests.^89 The matter soon spilled over to become the most notorious
dispute between the Briennes and the Church for over a hundred years.
Pope Lucius III intervened, sending the dean of Meaux to judge between
the two parties. The dean concluded his enquiry on 6 August 1185,
ruling that the abbey should be maintained in all of its rights. It is a sign
of the times, though, that the judgement was given at Paris.^90 At Brienne,
a year later, Erard underlined that the forests in question were those that
lay between the river Aube and the Barse (that is, those nearest to the
monastery).^91 Although this charter seems to have been sufficient to
close the matter, it was not the end of Erard’s difficultfinal decade.
When preparing to depart on the Third Crusade, Erard may well have
considered himself entitled to take a hard line with the Church, in view
of his own sacrifices for it. In 1189, he took into his own hand a
donation that Simon of Villevoque had intended for the abbey of
Basse-Fontaine.^92 Moreover, on the eve of his departure for the Holy
Land (‘Jerosolimam profecturus’), Erard reclaimed the village oven at
Sacey that he had given to Saint-Loup, though he did his best to assure
the abbey that it would receive suitable compensation.^93
First Footsteps in the Holy LandThe Briennes were far more a regional than a kingdom-wide power.
They came to widespread attention on comparatively few occasions.
Perhaps their debut, in this particular respect, came at the great council
of Senlis, on 22 May 1048. (This, incidentally, is the earliest exact date
that we have for a count of Brienne, after almost a century of patchy
information about the Engelberts.) The youthful Walter I attended the
council, alongside King Henry I of France, Duke William of Normandy
(the future‘Conqueror’) and the counts of Flanders, Blois, and Troyes
and Meaux.^94 Apart from this council, it would be fair to observe that
society at large took notice mainly when the Briennes had committed
(^88) ‘Catalogue’, nos. 44, 48, 56–7. (^89) Ibid., no. 44. (^90) Ibid., nos. 86–8.
(^91) Ibid., no. 95. The arrangement that Erard had made was confirmed and extended by
subsequent counts, starting with his son and heir, Walter III: seeibid., nos. 106,
92 112, 120.
94 Ibid., no. 99.^93 Ibid., no. 100.
‘Catalogue’, no. 9, which does not spell out the full list of attendees.
28 ‘Between Bar-sur-Aube and Rosnay’(c. 950–1191)