thefiefs that he held from her within Champagne.^125 This could have
been highly alarming for John, the distant king of Jerusalem. There may
well have been a very real threat to the county of Brienne itself, especially
if Erard was still officially serving as its bailli.^126 Blanche’s greatest
achievement at this juncture, though, was to impress the pope with the
gravity of the situation. Innocent III agreed that Erard and Philippa could
not lawfully wed, since the couple were too closely related, and he made
sure this was publicized in the Latin East. In fact, Erard’s troubles began
well before he got there. He was detained at Marseilles by Blanche’s
envoy, Lambert of Châtillon. However, it would seem that the civic
authorities couldfind no justification for what was, effectively, a‘citizen’s
arrest’, and so Lambert was forced to trail along behind him as Erard set
sail for the Levant.^127
Erard’s stay in the Holy Land has recently been re-examined in as
much detail as possible. It is certain that he arrived there under the
shadow of the papal ruling against him. As a result, it seems, he was
obliged to loiter for some time: a lengthy period that witnessed the
second marriage of his cousin, King John, and the shocking murder of
the patriarch and papal legate, Albert of Vercelli. Erard’s wedding took
place at the end of this rather mysterious pause, in the spring of 1215. In
what reads like a kind of feminist moment, the‘Colbert-Fontainebleau’
continuation presents Philippa as quite remarkably proactive in bringing
the marriage about. We are told that she secretly left the castle of Acre,
at night, before tying the knot with Erard the next day. Perhaps the most
telling feature of the wedding is that it appears to have taken place in
John’s absence, whilst he was away at Tyre. It is quite believable that the
king’s back was ostentatiously turned: that is, that he effectively con-
doned the marriage, but he could not be seen to be facilitating or
supporting it. Certainly, he soon had a great deal of explaining to do,
not least when he received a letter from the heir to the French crown,
the future Louis VIII, warning him to have nothing to do with Erard’s
scheme.^128
Erard’s return journey was no easier than his trip out to the East. The
newlyweds’ship put in at Gaeta, where Innocent III was staying. Erard
wisely decided against calling on the pope. However, such caution did
not prevent Erard from having two further‘near misses’on the way
home. He was rearrested by Blanche’s agents at Genoa, and it was only
(^125) The best and lengthiest treatment of the‘Erard of Brienne affair’is still to be found in
126 d’Arbois de Jubainville,Histoire, iv, part 1, 111–87.
128 Perry,John, 85.^127 D’Arbois de Jubainville,Histoire, iv, part 1, 113–15.
See Perry,“‘Scandalia...tam in oriente quam in occidente”’,72–4; andJohn,85–8.
The Notorious Erard of Ramerupt 59