Defeated so often as to be without the means of efficient resistance to the powerful invader, Jocelyn himself before long became the prisoner of some wandering hordes. Carried a captive to Aleppo, he soon died, crushed by the misery of his position and the unwholesomeness of his surroundings, leaving one son, called by the same name as himself, and two daughters.
Beatrice, his widow, for a while, with ability and courage, defended Turbessel against the attacks of Zenghi’s successor, Noureddin, but receiving inadequate support from the King of Jerusalem, she yielded the task of holding the country to the effeminate Greeks, and they proving incapable of the effort, the whole province, which from the time of the Apostles had been the home and refuge of Christianity in the East, was irretrievably overrun by the infidel.
Jocelyn III., with his mother and sister, took refuge in Jerusalem, where, for more than twenty years, he led the existence inseparable from the lot of those who supported the waning dominion of the Christians—one constant struggle, not for supremacy, but for life. His fate is unknown: history has no record of him after the siege of Jerusalem, so it may well be surmised that he shared the fate of the slain when the Holy City fell to the assault of the great Sultan Saladin.
Two daughters were the sole descendants of Jocelyn; consequently, with him ended the House of the Courtenays of Edessa.
But while one branch of the parent stem had thus died off in less than ninety years, the family tree itself flourished exceedingly, giving great promise of that luxuriance which, in after generations, blossomed into Royal magnificence.
The fall of Edessa, the bulwark of Christianity in the East, caused the Second Crusade. Again in the roll of those who took the Cross is to be found the name of Courtenay, for among the followers of King Louis le Jeune were numbered William and Reginald of that name, and also Peter de France, the King’s brother.
When Jocelyn of Edessa, together with his younger brother, Geoffrey Courtenay, surnamed de Chapalu, sailed, in the year 1101, for La Terre Sainte, the eldest son of the house, Milo de Courtenay, remained in France, succeeding, on the death of his father, to the family domains. He married Ermengarde, daughter of Renaud, Comte de Nevers, and by her had three sons—William, Reginald, and Jocelyn. Of the last, nothing is known but the name. William, who as aforesaid took part in the Crusade, died in the Holy Land, leaving, on the extinction of the Counts of Edessa and the death of Geoffrey de Chapalu, his uncle, Reginald, his younger brother, sole heir to the name and possessions of his forefathers.
In those days, when transit was difficult and the social barriers between the noble and the roturier almost insurmountable, it was the custom, well known to all who plunge into the intricacies of French genealogy, and reasonable enough, considering the circumstances of the times, for the males of a family of rank to marry, hardly without exception, the daughters of their neighbours of like degree.
Life was a very precarious commodity to a man of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. He lived in an atmosphere of continuous warfare, and if by nature, mental or physical, he was disinclined for this turbulent existence, the only refuge open to him lay in the celibate seclusion of the cloister. It frequently occurred, therefore, that females inherited paternal estates.
To this cause may well be attributed the fact that the possessions of the Courtenays had become largely augmented, for Reginald is described as Seigneur of Montargis, Chateau Renard, Champignelle, Tanlay, Charny, Chantecoq, and several other seigneuries, all situated in the Pays de Gastinois and the country round Sens, many of which, in the time of his progenitors, were unmistakably the property of neighbouring families.