Isabella of Brienne

Isabella, Countess of Brienne
Spouse(s)	Walter III of Enghien
Noble family	House of Brienne
Father	Walter V of Brienne
Mother	Jeanne de Châtillon
Born	1306
Died	1360

Isabella of Brienne (1306–1360) was suo jure Countess of Lecce and Conversano, claimant to the Duchy of Athens and Kingdom of Jerusalem, etc.

She was daughter of Walter V of Brienne, Duke of Athens, who was killed at the Battle of Halmyros near Thebes, Greece, in 1311. As the granddaughter of Hugh of Brienne, Count of Lecce etc., she was a descendant of the Kings of Jerusalem and of Cyprus.

Her father's life was largely spent in Greece, where he tried to win back his mother's inheritance, the Duchy of Athens. Walter V of Brienne hired the Catalan Company, a group of mercenaries founded by Roger de Flor, to fight against the Byzantine successor states of Epirus and Nicaea, but when he tried to cheat and kill them in 1311, they slew him at the Battle of Halmyros and took over the Duchy, making Catalan the official language and replacing the French and Byzantine-derived laws of the Principality of Achaea with the laws of Catalonia, soon making it up as Duchy of Neopatras. When the duke Gauthier was killed, Isabella's mother Jeanne de Châtillon (died 1354), daughter of count of Porcien, may have tried to hold the Acropolis of Athens against the attacking Catalans, but eventually surrendered it. The Brienne family retainers continued to hold Argos and Nauplia under Walter of Foucherolles. Duchess Joanna however fled with her two young children to France, where the family had properties in Champagne, around Brienne-le-Chateau. The impoverished family was not able to provide better, and Isabella married a Walloon knight, Walter III of Enghien, whose lordships in and around the Hainaut were not unsubstantial (Condé, Enghien).

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