a young age, but the boy did not want that. So hefled to the care and
protection of a relative–ironically, in a monastery–but then he was
taken away from there by some knights, who happened to be passing.
The young man grew up to become a magnificent knight himself,
building a formidable reputation in tournaments and real warfare. He
remained estranged from his father, however, who refused to grant him
any land, and so John became known by the inevitable soubriquet of
‘Lackland’. It was word and renown of John’s knightly deeds that won
him the crown of Jerusalem,‘and so John Lackland became Good King
John’.^8 It is worth stressing that there are some precious kernels of truth
hidden deep within all this nonsense. It may well have been expected that
John would make his career in the Church. Certainly, his very name
recalls his uncle, the would-be abbot of Prémontré. The chances are that
John did indeed abandon the religious life whilst yet quite young, and, at
this juncture, he may well have begun a chivalric career revolving around
tournaments and war–that is, something that comes very close to our
romanticized idea of what being a knight is all about.^9
Count Erard II and his brother, Andrew of Ramerupt, set out on the
Third Crusade in 1189. Both were now of such an age that there may
well have been doubts, in many people’s minds, as to whether they would
return–and, as we have seen, they did not. Andrew perished heroically
at Acre before the year was out; Erard himself died, rather less spectacu-
larly, on 8 February 1191. Within a short period of time, Walter III
was styling himself as count of Brienne.^10 Yet Walter’s position could
well have been noticeably weaker than his father’s had been before him.
In accordance with standard Champenois practice, Walter was obliged
to share his landed inheritance with his mother, the widowed Agnes;
with his brother, William; and–perhaps unexpectedly–with his other
brother, John, who had returned to Brienne, as a secularfigure, by
1194 – 5 at the latest.^11 One way of counteracting this diminution was to
draw closer to the suzerain count of Champagne. It may have been
William who led the way in this. As brother to the count, rather than as
count himself, he had rather less to lose. When the new count of Cham-
pagne, Theobald III, did homage to the French king, Philip Augustus, at
(^8) Récits d’un ménestrel de Reims au treizième siècle, ch. 16. (^9) Perry,John,27–30.
(^10) ‘Catalogue’, no. 103.
(^11) Seeibid., no. 104, which actually dates from 1194–5 (Longnon,Recherches sur la vie de
Geoffroy de Villehardouin,‘Catalogue des actes des Villehardouin’, no. 34). Champenois
inheritance customs are helpfully summarized in Evergates,Aristocracy,96–8, 113–5,
120 – 3.
The Life and Death of Walter III 35