Jehan de Braine was, jure uxoris

Jure uxoris

Jure uxoris is a Latin term that means "by right of his wife" or "in right of a wife". It is commonly used to refer to a title held by a man whose wife holds it in her own right. In other words, he acquired the title simply by being her husband....

, the Count of Mâcon and Vienne

Count of Vienne

The Count of Vienne was the ruler of the Viennois, with his seat at Vienne, during the period of the Carolingian Empire and after until 1030, when the county of Vienne was granted to the Archdiocese of Vienne....

 from 1224 until his death. He was a younger son of Robert II of Dreux

Robert II of Dreux

Robert II of Dreux , Count of Dreux and Braine, was the eldest surviving son of Robert I, Count of Dreux, and Agnes de Baudemont, countess of Braine, and a grandson of King Louis VI of France....

 and his second wife, Yolanta de Couci. His wife was Alix, granddaughter of William V of Mâcon. Jehan was also a trouvère

Trouvère

Trouvère , sometimes spelled trouveur , is the Northern French form of the word trobador . It refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours but who composed their works in the northern dialects of France...

 and a Crusader. He followed Theobald I of Navarre

Theobald I of Navarre

Theobald I , called the Troubadour, the Chansonnier, and the Posthumous, was Count of Champagne from birth and King of Navarre from 1234...

 to 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...

 in 1239 and there died a year later. His widow sold her counties to the French crown.

Of Jehan's poetry survive one pastourelle

Pastourelle

The pastourelle is a typically Old French lyric form concerning the romance of a shepherdess. In most of the early pastourelles, the poet knight meets a shepherdess who bests him in a wit battle and who displays general coyness. The narrator usually has sexual relations, either consensual or...

, "Par desous l'ombre d'un bois", and two chansons d'amour, "Pensis d'amours, joians et corociés" and "Je n'os chanter trop tart ne trop souvent". Of these "Pensis d'amours" alone is preserved in mensural notation

Mensural notation

Mensural notation is the musical notation system which was used in European music from the later part of the 13th century until about 1600."Mensural" refers to the ability of this system to notate complex rhythms with great exactness and flexibility...

, in the Chansonnier Cangé. In the Manuscrit du Roi and the Chansonnier de Noailles the melody ends on different notes. There exist three French poems attributed to John of Brienne

John of Brienne

John of Brienne was a French nobleman who became King of Jerusalem by marriage, and ruled the Latin Empire of Constantinople as regent.-Life:...

 that are in fact the work of Jehan de Braine.

Moniot d'Arras

Moniot d'Arras

Moniot d'Arras was a French composer and poet of the trouvère tradition. He was a monk of the abbey of Arras in northern France; the area was at the time a center of trouvère activity, and his contemporaries included Adam de la Halle and Colin Muset. His songs were all monophonic in the tradition...

 addressed one of his chansons to Jehan, and refers to Jehan's nephew, Jehan le Roux

John I, Duke of Brittany

John I the Red , known as John the Red due to the colour of his beard, was Duke of Brittany, from 1237 to his death...

, as Comte de Bretagne.

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