2 Breakthrough and High Point (c. 1191–1237)
The Briennes’breakthrough onto the international stage and rise to their
high point took place over the course of thirty years–the generation that
Guiot of Provins had written off as the‘age of lead’. During this period,
the key members of the family were Count Walter III of Brienne, the
conqueror of much of southern Italy; his younger brother John, some-
time count of Brienne, king of Jerusalem and Latin emperor of Constan-
tinople; and their cousin, Erard I of Ramerupt, the notorious claimant to
the county of Champagne. John’s life has recently been re-examined in
detail, and that book also touches on the careers of Walter and Erard.^1
What has not been undertaken so far, though, is an attempt to view them
all together as different facets of one phenomenon: that is, as the Brienne
‘breakthrough and highpoint generation’. It is no accident that, in the
early thirteenth century, three suchfigures appeared, one after the other.
Rather, the family’s meteoric rise was intricately linked, with the emer-
gence of each member of the troika setting the stage for what would take
place at a later date. Hence, in this chapter, there are three separate lives
to follow, and it is essential to keep them apart if they are to be properly
understood. However, the emphasis, throughout, is on the factors that
bring them together–on what they have in common.
The Life and Death of Walter IIIWalter was the eldest son and heir of Count Erard II of Brienne. We
know that Walter had at least three younger brothers: William, Andrew
and John. The chances are that they were born in that order, though
Andrew died at a young age.^2 Walter also had at least two sisters. One of
them, Ida, eventually married Hernol (or‘Ernoul’), the lord of Reynel in
eastern Champagne. His family had been closely connected with the
(^1) See Perry,John. (^2) Ibid., 25.
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