King of Jerusalem, Emporer of Constantinople - Jean de Brienne

Leo's Tree

Jean de Brienne, 1170-1237, Comte of Eu. His shield of arms above are blazoned as:
                                                          azure a lion rampant Or

Shown above, the arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, blazoned as:
             argent a cross potent between four crosslets Or
Jean de Brienne was King of Jerusalem 1210-1229 by right of his wife, Maria de Montferrat, (who inherited the kingdom from her mother). After his wife died in 1212, Jean de Brienne was regent for their daughter who later became Isabella, Queen of Jerusalem. 

Shown above, the arms of the Latin Kingdom of Constantinople, blazoned as:

       gules crusilly a cross between four annulets within each a crosslet Or

Jean de Brienne was Emporer of the Latin Kingdom of Constantinople, regent for Baldwin of Courtenay until Baldwin reached the age of twenty. Then they were co-rulers in the last two years of Jean's life.

Chosen by fate to play a role which the size of his armies denied him, Jean nevertheless was King of Jerusalem and Emperor of Constantinople and left one of his daughters Queen of Jerusalem and one other daughter the Empress Consort of Constantinople.

He was a Crusader who declined to sack Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, and went home with his men. He also quit the Crusade against the Albigensians of the Languedoc after the bloodbath at the first city, Beziers.  By his deeds he was known as a ferocious fighter and leader of knights, but also known as a man who chose to not wage war against women and children.  He was trusted by his peers and by the kings, Popes and Emperors of his day with two of the most important thrones of his era, and with two of the most vulnerable royalty.

For a mere second son, destined to become a clerk, he didn't do too badly.

Oh Yes! Another Magna Carta Surety Baron - the 11th

Just when I think there couldn't be any more - I discover yet another member of that exclusive group on Leo's Tree:

Sir William d'Aubeney (d'Aubigny; d'Albini) 1147-1236  Magna Carta Surety Baron, Lord of Belvoir Castle, Sheriff of Rutland, 1195; Sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, 1197; Sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire, 1197.  The arms he bore are blazoned as:

gules a lion rampant Or

Magna Carta Surety Baron Sir Henry de Bohun - tenth of ten

Leo's Tree

 Azure a bend argent coticed Or between six lions rampant Or

 The above blazon is from the Herald's Roll, number 46 for the Count of Hereford, Humphrey Bohun, at http://www.briantimms.net/era/heralds/heralds01/Heralds01.htm

Thanks to Brian Timms for his comprehensive collection of Shield of Arms, and his generosity to share it.

Our tree is a work in progress, and today I discovered another Magna Carta Baron on Leo's branches:
Sir Henry de Bohun, 1175-1220, 5th Baron of Hereford, 1st Earl Hereford, Constable of England, Sheriff of Kent. He died in the Holy Land, 1 June 1220.

The Middle Ages were Not at all What I Thought

When the subject of Knights in armor, castles and tournaments - the way life was in the Middle Ages is considered, what do people of our age think it was like?


I for one, had thought it would be a simple society with very few social divisions, and those would be highly stratified.  I thought people would be illiterate, untraveled, unwashed and ignorant - totally unsophisticated - except for a few centers of learning, a few merchants and knights.


I could not have been more wrong in my opinions.


Untraveled? Perhaps the people who worked the fields stayed in one place, but my reading shows that merchants and from the knightly class and upwards, people traveled a great deal.  They went back and forth across the English Channel like we go back and forth across a street.  They visited Ireland, Scotland, Wales, like neighbors dropping in for tea (except they often dropped in for a battle).  It was a part of their of culture for the men, who sometimes brought their wives with them, to take out some time to go to Jerusalem, or at least make a pilgrimage to a shrine in Spain, Italy or Germany.


Illiterate?  although writing was most often practiced by scholars, lawyers and priests, the upper classes were fluent in two, and often three, languages. Well educated barons might also read Greek. Their libraries, though small, might contain books in three languages, all of which they read. High Norman French was spoken at court in England, Latin was spoken when dealing in diplomacy and legal affairs, including the transfer of property, and Anglo-Saxon was spoken with farmers, servants and merchants.  Depending on where their seat of power was located, the ruling class might also be fluent in Cymric (the language of Wales).


Consider my amazement when I discovered that castles often had bathing rooms, and some rulers even ported a large bathing tub with them when they traveled.  Bathing never went out of fashion, but the devastation caused by the extreme famine in the 14th century, followed by nearly half the population dying of the plague, left the remaining people too weakened to do more than just barely survive.


Most of all, I am astonished at the complexity and sophistication of the culture and society of the Middle Ages.  There was a body of laws which were enforced in courts at various levels of power.  There was a highly developed system of trade not only within the borders of a country, but across borders and seas.  There was a rapid progression of development in architecture and art, and in the mechanics of offensive and defensive warfare - armour, weapons, siege engines and the like.


While most people did spend their lives in the class into which they were born, there was also a certain amount of upward mobility, and everyone who was freeborn had certain rights in the law and in custom.

It was a world quite different from ours, and yet I have found more points of similarity than I expected. While women had less freedom than we do now, it was not only women who had to live according to narrow rules and expectations. Everyone including knights had lives more circumscribed by custom, rules and law than people these days.


Scholars have said the mindset, the assumptions and expectations of people living in the Middle Ages is so different from ours as to render it impossible for us to understand them.  No doubt they are right, but that doesn't keep me from exploring what I can find, and reorienting my view accordingly.

"But how do you know you have the right people?"

The latest post by Dick Eastman "Barking Up the Wrong Tree", reminded me about the question a relative asked me when he saw my notebook full of ancestor records; "But how do you know you have the right people?"  As Dick pointed out, it isn't enough even to check original records: people in the same town may have identical names.

The answer is in more research, as Mr. Eastman shows - getting the whole picture: not only the person's vital dates, but the names of all associated family - spouse, children, etc. In cases where it is possible to discover the person's employment it can differentiate two otherwise similar people: someone who is a farmer/blacksmith in one census is not likely to have sold the farm and become a pastor or a hat maker in the next.

Beyond checking facts that can be found in contemporary records - original sources, I have found that there is a great variation in the accuracy of secondary sources. It helps to know the reputation of book or writer, and to weigh their information accordingly.

Haste does make waste, and like Dick Eastman, I have lopped off branches from my family tree after finding my research was not thorough enough to discern between my own ancestors and those of someone else.  The only thing worse would be to never discover the error, and go blithely on, recording more and more wrong leaves on the branches of my family tree.

Pembroke Castle - home of William Marshall [Leo's Tree]

Pembroke Castle as seen from across the Pembroke River, nearly as it might have looked in 1200 when William and Isabel were in residence.

William Marshall Earl of Pembroke by Catherine A. Armstrong is a recent biography of the undefeated knight, the flower of chivalry, counselor to four kings, Regent of England, a legend in his own time. Sir William is Leo's 23rd great-grandfather.  His shield, below, is blazoned as follows:

per pale Or and vert a lion rampant gules

Shield of William Marshall picture thanks to Reed M. W. Wurts for furnishing of the correct shield to the Brookfield Ancestor Project - Surety Barons [these arms for William Marshall Jr. are the same as those of his famous father] - see also 'Some Feudal Coats of Arms' etc. by Joseph Foster, pub. 1902.

Pembroke Castle picture thanks to Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike.  Picture uploaded 2007-9-23 by Monkeyrustler.