Walter IV (Brienne)

Walter IV of Brienne (French: Gauthier , Italian: Gualtiero ; * 1205 ; † 1246 ) was a count of Brienne and Jaffa .

Life

He was the son of Walter III. by Brienne and Elvira from Lecce.

At the time of his birth, his father lost the battle against the Hohenstaufen for the Sicilian throne and died in captivity. The Principality of Taranto and the County of Lecce were confiscated. Walter IV only inherited his father's county of Brienne. As a youth, Walter IV was sent to Outremer , where his uncle Johann von Brienne was regent of the Kingdom of Jerusalem . He supported the barons under the leadership of Johann von Ibelin , the "old lord of Beirut", in the fight against the imperial governor Richard Filangieri . Around 1235 he married Mary of Cyprus, daughter of King Hugo I and Alice of Champagne , who brought him the county of Jaffa as a morning gift.

Walter joined the barons' crusade from 1239 to 1240 , as a result of which Ascalon was re-conquered and fortified. Ascalon was once part of Jaffa County before Saladin captured it in 1187 . But Walter did not get Askalon back because Emperor Friedrich II sold this castle to the Order of St. John in 1243 , who actually took possession of the castle.

In 1244 Walter led the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem into the battle of La Forbie against that of the Egyptian army of Sultan al-Salih . Contrary to the advice of his Syrian ally al-Mansur of Homs to fortify his encampment and await the possible retreat of the Khoresmians , Walter ordered the attack. In the following battle, the Christian-Syrian army was crushed. Walter was captured by the Choresmians, tortured outside the walls of Jaffa and finally handed over to the Egyptians after the defeat of the Choresmians at Homs in 1246. He was imprisoned in Cairo and eventually murdered with the consent of the Sultan by merchants whose caravans he had robbed.

His underage sons retired to the royal court of their maternal cousin in Cyprus. The county of Jaffa was given to John of Ibelin in 1247 . Walter's eldest son, Johann I von Brienne , succeeded him as Count von Brienne . He died childless in Cyprus in 1261. He was followed by Walter's younger son Hugo von Brienne , who left Cyprus around 1268, settled in southern Italy and joined Charles of Anjou , from whom he finally got the county of Lecce back.

Walter's remains were not discovered by the Mameluks until the end of 1250 as a diplomatic courtesy to Louis IX. Approved. They were buried by his cousin Marguerite de Reynel , wife of the Balian of Sidon , in the Johanniterkirche St. Johannis in Acre .

Individual proof

1. ^ The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville. A new English version by Ethel Wedgwood. J. Murray London 1906, pp. 240-241 , III, § 4.

predecessor	Office	successor
Walter III.	Count of Brienne 1205–1246	Johann I.
Crown domain	Earl of Jaffa 1235-1246	Johann of Ibelin