Name Suffix:<NSFX> Byzantine Emperor
King Of Jerusalem 1210-1212 Ruled From Acre Since Saracen
s Had Jerusalem
John, byname JOHN OF BRIENNE, French JEAN DE BRIENNE (b. c
. 1148--d. March 1237, Constantinople), count of Brienne wh
o became titular king of Jerusalem (1210-29) and Latin empe
ror of Constantinople (1231-37).
A penniless younger son of the French count Erard II of Bri
enne and Agnes of Montbéliard, John passed most of his lif
e as a minor noble until befriended by King Philip II Augus
tus of France, who arranged for him to marry Mary (Marie) o
f Montferrat, queen of the crusader state of Jerusalem, i
n 1210. John reached the Palestinian town of Acre on Sept
. 13, 1210, married Mary the following day, and was crowne
d at Tyre on October 3. Mary died in 1212, and John was nam
ed regent for their infant daughter, Yolande de Brienne, wh
o inherited the crown as Isabella II. In 1214 John marrie
d Princess Stephanie of Armenia, daughter of the Armenian k
ing Leo II, and later had a son by her.
As regent, John arranged a five-year truce with al-Malik al
-'Adil, sultan of Egypt and Syria, in July 1212, and durin
g the truce he persuaded Pope Innocent III to launch the Fi
fth Crusade in support of his daughter's kingdom. In 1218 h
e joined the crusading force from the West in an expeditio
n against the Egyptian port of Damietta. After quarrellin
g with the crusade leader, the cardinal legate Pelagius, Jo
hn left Egypt in February 1220, returning in July 1221 to w
itness the humiliating defeat of the crusaders and the aban
donment of the siege of Damietta.
Stephanie died in 1219; John then married Berengaria, daugh
ter of Ferdinand III of Castile, and in 1225 gave his daugh
ter Isabella in marriage to the Holy Roman emperor Frederic
k II, trying to retain his rights as regent of the kingdo
m of Jerusalem. Immediately following the marriage, however
, Frederick began to contest these rights.
In 1228 John was invited to Constantinople to be regent an
d co-emperor with the young Baldwin II and arranged a matc
h between Baldwin and his four-year-old daughter by Berenga
ria. Crowned in 1231, John helped fend off attacks by the B
ulgarian tsar Ivan Asen II and the Nicaean emperor John II
I Vatatzes, but shortly before his death he was forced to a
ppeal to the West for help.