Jean I de Grailly was the seneschal

Seneschal

A seneschal was an officer in the houses of important nobles in the Middle Ages. In the French administrative system of the Middle Ages, the sénéchal was also a royal officer in charge of justice and control of the administration in southern provinces, equivalent to the northern French bailli...

 of the Duchy of Gascony from 1266 to 1268, of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

Kingdom of Jerusalem

The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Catholic kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods....

 from about 1272 until about 1276, and of Gascony again from 1278 until 1286 or 1287.

Early life

Jean was born on the shores of Lake Geneva

Lake Geneva

Lake Geneva or Lake Léman is a lake in Switzerland and France. It is one of the largest lakes in Western Europe. 59.53 % of it comes under the jurisdiction of Switzerland , and 40.47 % under France...

 in the County of Savoy

County of Savoy

The Counts of Savoy emerged, along with the free communes of Switzerland, from the collapse of the Burgundian Kingdom of Arles in the 11th century....

. He probably travelled to England during the reign of Henry III of England

Henry III of England

Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...

 in the entourage of Peter II of Savoy, who was uncle to Queen Eleanor of Provence

Eleanor of Provence

Eleanor of Provence was Queen consort of England as the spouse of King Henry III of England from 1236 until his death in 1272....

. In 1262 he was already a knight in the household of Prince Edward, the king's heir and future King Edward I of England

Edward I of England

Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...

. In 1263 he had attained the status of a counsellor of the young prince. In 1266 he was rewarded for his services with the castle and viscounty of Benauges. He acquired the saltworks in Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

 and the right of toll at Pierrefite on the Dordogne

Dordogne

Dordogne is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great river Dordogne that runs through it...

 as sources of income. He also received the lordship of Langon

Langon, Gironde

Langon is a commune in the Gironde department in Aquitaine in southwestern France.-Geography:Langon is in the southern part of the department southeast of Bordeaux on the left bank of the Garonne river...

 and was made seneschal of Prince Edward's fief of Gascony. In 1280 he founded the town of Cadillac to provide a port for Benauges.

Ninth Crusade

In 1270 he accompanied Edward on the Ninth Crusade

Ninth Crusade

The Ninth Crusade, which is sometimes grouped with the Eighth Crusade, is commonly considered to be the last major medieval Crusade to the Holy Land. It took place in 1271–1272....

 to Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. He stayed behind in the Crusader kingdom as seneschal

Officers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

There were six major officers of the kingdom of Jerusalem: the constable, the marshal, the seneschal, the chamberlain , the butler and the chancellor...

 and only returned to Gascony sometime before or during 1276. He maintained an interest in the fate of Jerusalem for the remainder of his life, however. In October 1277 he was in England to warn now-king Edward of the conspiracy of the viscount of Castillon

Castillon

Castillon may refer to several communes in France:*Castillon, Alpes-Maritimes, in the Alpes-Maritimes département*Castillon, Calvados, in the Calvados département...

. In 1278 he was re-appointed to his old Gascon post.

Europe

In 1279, Jean travelled to Amiens

Amiens

Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...

 and to England to negotiate the Treaty of Amiens

Treaty of Amiens

The Treaty of Amiens temporarily ended hostilities between the French Republic and the United Kingdom during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was signed in the city of Amiens on 25 March 1802 , by Joseph Bonaparte and the Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace"...

, which ended the state of war between Edward of England and Philip III of France

Philip III of France

Philip III , called the Bold , was the King of France, succeeding his father, Louis IX, and reigning from 1270 to 1285. He was a member of the House of Capet.-Biography:...

 and returned the Agenais

Agenais

Agenais, or Agenois, was a province of France located in southwest France south of Périgord.In ancient Gaul the region was the country of the Nitiobroges with Aginnum for their capital, which in the fourth century was the Civitas Agennensium, which was a part of Aquitania Secunda and which formed...

 to English control. Only two weeks after the treaty, Jean de Grailly encouraged an inquiry to determine whether or not he Quercy

Quercy

Quercy is a former province of France located in the country's southwest, bounded on the north by Limousin, on the west by Périgord and Agenais, on the south by Gascony and Languedoc, and on the east by Rouergue and Auvergne....

 was English territory. He was already appointed to the commission to oversee the return of the Agenais and his seneschal's duties were extended to the new region. Edward also ordered Jean not to pay the fouage, a tax demanded by the French king. He was granted royal letters to demonstrate the king's intention to pay the tax in a few years, after better harvests. In 1285 he even negotiated a treaty fixing the tariff on Bordeaux wine

Bordeaux wine

A Bordeaux wine is any wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France. Average vintages produce over 700 million bottles of Bordeaux wine, ranging from large quantities of everyday table wine, to some of the most expensive and prestigious wines in the world...

.

Jean also had to negotiate with the French court in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 concerning the dating clauses of Gascon charters. The mutually acceptable formula resulting was: actum fuit regnantibus Philippo regis Francie, Edwardo rege Anglie, duce Aquitanie. Jean travelled extensively, not only to Paris, but also to Fuenterrabia to negotiate with Alfonso X of Castile

Alfonso X of Castile

Alfonso X was a Castilian monarch who ruled as the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1252 until his death...

. On 2 January 1281 he was in Vienne

Vienne

Vienne is the northernmost département of the Poitou-Charentes region of France, named after the river Vienne.- Viennese history :Vienne is one of the original 83 departments, established on March 4, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Poitou,...

 to witness an accord between Philip I of Savoy and Robert II of Burgundy. Later that year he was dispatched to Mâcon

Mâcon

Mâcon is a small city in central France. It is prefecture of the Saône-et-Loire department, in the region of Bourgogne, and the capital of the Mâconnais district. Mâcon is home to over 35,000 residents, called Mâconnais.-Geography:...

 to advise Margaret of Provence, the widow of Louis IX of France

Louis IX of France

Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...

. Edward employed him extensively as his deputy in continental Europe.

Between 1280 and 1285 Grailly took part in the tortuous negotiations concerning the inheritance of the County of Bigorre

County of Bigorre

The County of Bigorre was a small feudatory of the Duchy of Aquitaine in the ninth through fifteenth centuries. Its capital was Tarbes.The county was constituted out of the dowry of a Faquilène, an Aquitainian princess, for her husband Donatus Lupus I, the son of Lupus III of Gascony...

 after the death of the five-times married Countess Petronilla. Eventually it was determined that the proper heiress was Joanna I of Navarre. The question of homage and featly, however, was put off, as the Joanna and her husband, Philip the Fair

Philip IV of France

Philip the Fair was, as Philip IV, King of France from 1285 until his death. He was the husband of Joan I of Navarre, by virtue of which he was, as Philip I, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne from 1284 to 1305.-Youth:A member of the House of Capet, Philip was born at the Palace of...

, were both monarch and thus swore homage to none. Nonetheless the question of whether Bigorre was a feudatory of the Duke of Aquitaine or the King of France was to be an issue between the two monarch throughout the fourteenth century.

Jean de Grailly eventually fell short of funds for his activities, since his expenses need approval from the Exchequer

Exchequer

The Exchequer is a government department of the United Kingdom responsible for the management and collection of taxation and other government revenues. The historical Exchequer developed judicial roles...

 before he could receive his salary. He took to exploitation and illegal exactions from the peasants, whose complaints eventually reached the ears of Edward I. He was removed from office sometime between June 1286 and Spring 1287, when the king and Queen Eleanor of Castile

Eleanor of Castile

Eleanor of Castile was the first queen consort of Edward I of England. She was also Countess of Ponthieu in her own right from 1279 until her death in 1290, succeeding her mother and ruling together with her husband.-Birth:...

, present in Gascony, set up an inquiry into his actions. The commission found him to have misappropriated monies in several municipalities. He was order to repay them, but these payments could be made from outstanding funds owed him. He himself returned to Savoy and left his Gascon lands to his son Pierre.

Last campaigns in the Levant

Jean went back to the Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

 in the end of the 1280s. In 1289, he led a French regiment from Acre

Acre

The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

 to the besieged city of Tripoli, until the Fall of Tripoli

Fall of Tripoli

The Fall of Tripoli was the capture and destruction of the Crusader state, the County of Tripoli , by the Muslim Mamluks...

 in April 1289. Following the fall of Tripoli, Jean was sent to Europe by king Henry of Cyprus to warn European monarchs about the critical situation in the Levant. Jean met with Pope Nicholas IV

Pope Nicholas IV

Pope Nicholas IV , born Girolamo Masci, was Pope from February 22, 1288 to April 4, 1292. A Franciscan friar, he had been legate to the Greeks under Pope Gregory X in 1272, succeeded Bonaventure as Minister General of his religious order in 1274, was made Cardinal Priest of Santa Prassede and...

 who shared his worries and wrote a letter to European potentates to do something about the Holy Land

Holy Land

The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

. Most however were too preoccupied by the Sicilian question to organize a Crusades, as was Edward I too entangled in troubles at home. Only a small army of peasant and unemployed townfolks from Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

 and Lombardy

Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

could be raised. They were transported in 20 Venetians galleys. They were led by Nicholas Tiepolo, the son of the Doge

Doge

Doge is a dialectal Italian word that descends from the Latin dux , meaning "leader", especially in a military context. The wife of a Doge is styled a Dogaressa....

 Lorenzo Tiepolo

Lorenzo Tiepolo

Lorenzo Tiepolo was Doge of Venice from 1268 until his death.Born in Venice, Lorenzo Tiepolo was the son of Doge Jacopo Tiepolo. It is a matter of debate if his second wife, Marguerite, was either the daughter of the King of Romania or of Bohemund of Brienne, ruler of Rascia...

, who was assisted by the returning Jean and Roux of Sully.

Jean was present as the Commander of the French king's troops at the fall of Acre

Siege of Acre (1291)

The Siege of Acre took place in 1291 and resulted in the loss of the Crusader-controlled city of Acre to the Muslims. It is considered one of the most important battles of the time period. Although the crusading movement continued for several more centuries, the capture of the city marked the end...

. Wounded, he was rescued during one point of siege by his fellow Savoyard Otho de Grandison, once a faithful servant of Edward's as well, and escaped on ship to Cyprus. He returned afterwards to Savoy, where he died. His descendants continued to play a crucial role in Gascony over the next century.