In short, it is possible to argue that the Briennes’rise really started here,
when the leading members of the family perished for Christ before the
walls of Acre.
The Third Crusade shattered a great many Champenois dynasties.
The contemporarytrouvère, Guiot of Provins, expounded a hugely long
list of the chief casualties from the region, in which the Briennes feature
as a matter of course. So many barons had perished whose equal he did
not expect to see again, leaving behind‘younger, less accomplished
heirs’.^112 For the Brienne family, though, the generation that started to
come to power in 1189–92 would outdo even Erard II and Andrew of
Ramerupt.
(^112) See Guiot’s masterpiece,‘La Bible’, which can be found inLesŒuvres de Guiot de
Provins, poète lyrique et satirique, ed. J. Orr (Manchester, 1915), 10–93. See also
Evergates,Aristocracy, 32.
32 ‘Between Bar-sur-Aube and Rosnay’(c. 950–1191)