the hustle and bustle of preparations for the Fourth Lateran Council that
facilitated his escape from their clutches.^129 The French crown, too, was
now taking a muchfirmer line against Erard. He was accosted at Le Puy,
and freed only on the grounds that he was technically a crusader. Erard
finally made it back to Champagne, with his bride, after a round trip of
some two and a half years.^130
During Erard’s long absence, Countess Blanche had moved to under-
mine his position in a range of different ways. She launched an ecclesi-
astical inquiry, which found that Count Henry II of Champagne’s
marriage to Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem had been invalid, which would
make it highly unlikely that their daughters, Alice and Philippa, could
inherit.^131 Meanwhile, a large number of witnesses confirmed that Henry
had consigned Champagne to his brother–that is, to Theobald III and
his lawful descendants–if Henry himself did not return from the East
(which is precisely what had happened). However, the most important
development came from a quite different quarter: that is, from the
French crown. Some time earlier, Philip Augustus had ruled that the
young Theobald IV’s position could not be challenged before the latter
attained his majority at the age of twenty-one. In August 1214, though, in
the immediate afterglow of Philip’s great triumph at the battle of Bou-
vines, the king received Theobald’s homage‘for the whole county of
Champagne and Brie’, even though the boy was still a minor.^132 In other
words, the crown had prejudged the issue. In this way, Philip set his seal
on a circle of the great and good who were rallying around Blanche and
her son.
Yet the matter could not be settled by great powerfiat alone. Blanche
did her utmost within Champagne, using a judicious combination of
inducements and threats to secure the loyalty of doubtful vassals, and
she was especially concerned about those who were closely related to the
Brienne family in one way or another. She managed to secure thefirm
backing of Count Milo IV of Bar-sur-Seine, who had been on crusade
with John a few years earlier. Blanche had much less success, though,
with Simon of Joinville, seneschal of Champagne, and his brother,
(^129) It is worth adding that, at the council, King John’s clerical allies perhaps did what they
could to help Erard. They may well have lobbied for an extension to the permitted
degrees for marriage–and, in the end, this would make it rather easier for Erard’s
nuptials to be recognized as licit. See Perry,“‘Scandalia...tam in oriente quam in
occidente”’, 74; andJohn, 87.
(^130) D’Arbois de Jubainville,Histoire, iv, part 1, 116–18.
(^131) It is worth noting that this decision also undermined John’s right to his crown in the
East, since it implicitly denied the legitimacy of his wife, Queen Maria. However, little
132 or nothing came of this threat. For more on this point, see Perry,John,83–4.
See Evergates,Aristocracy,39–40.
60 Breakthrough and High Point (c. 1191–1237)