House of Courtenay

The House of Courtenay is a medieval noble house of French origins, with branches in France, England and the Holy Land. One branch of the Capetian dynasty bore the name of Courtenay through mariage to a Courtenay heiress and became a royal house of the dynasty, cousins of the Bourbons and the Valois, and achieved the title of Latin Emperor of Constantinople.

The house was founded by Athon, the first lord of Courtenay in France. Athon took advantage of the succession crisis in the Duchy of Burgundy between Otto-William, Duke of Burgundy and King Robert II of France to capture a piece of land for himself, where he established his own seigneury (lordship), taking his surname from the town he founded and fortified.

Athon was succeeded by his son Joscelin, who had three sons: Miles, who was Lord of Courtenay after him; Prince Joscelin, who joined the First Crusade and became Count of Edessa; and Geoffrey, who also fought in the Holy Land and died there.

In the 12th century, Reginald de Courtenay (d.1160), son of Milo de Courtenay (d.1127), quarrelled with King Louis VII of France and moved to England: His French lands were forfeit, and passed, with his daughter Elizabeth, to Louis' brother Peter, who took the name "Peter de Courtenay". His son, Peter II, later became Latin Emperor of Constantinople.

Joscelin de Courtenay arrived in Outremer with the third wave of the First Crusade and proved himself capable, becoming in turn Lord of Turbessel, Prince of Galilee, and (in 1118) Count of Edessa, succeeding his cousin King Baldwin II of Jerusalem. He was succeeded in 1131 by his son, Joscelin II, but the county was lost in 1144, and Joscelin died in captivity in 1159. His son, Joscelin III, was the titular Count, while his sister, Agnes, became Queen of Jerusalem by marriage to King Amalric.

Amalric's second wife, Maria Komnene, Queen of Jerusalem, became the wife of Balian of Ibelin, of the House of Ibelin. Joscelin III died in the 1190s, succeeded by two daughters; his last property was passed by them to the Teutonic Order. His sister, Agnes of Courtenay, was mother to two monarchs, King Baldwin the Leper and Queen Sibylla. She later married Hugh of Ibelin, brother of Balian, who surrendered Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187.

Reginald de Courtenay's grandson, Robert de Courtenay (d.1242), feudal baron of Okehampton, Devon (in right of his mother Hawise de Curcy (d.1219),) married Mary de Redvers, daughter and heiress of William de Redvers, 5th Earl of Devon (d.1217), seated at Tiverton Castle and Plympton Castle in Devon. On the death of Isabel de Forz, suo jure 8th Countess of Devon in 1293 (the sister and heiress of Baldwin de Redvers, 7th Earl of Devon (1236–1262)) she was succeeded by her cousin Hugh de Courtenay, 1st/9th Earl of Devon (d.1340), feudal baron of Okehampton, the great-grandson of Robert de Courtenay (d.1242).

His title of Earl of Devon was not however officially recognised until 1335, and it remains unclear whether it was a new creation or a continuation of the Redvers title, with different modern sources giving him as either 1st or 9th Earl of Devon. The senior line seated at Tiverton, Okehampton and Plympton, died out in 1471 during the Wars of the Roses, but the Earldom was recreated three more times in 1485, 1511 and 1553 for cousins, all descended from the eldest son of the 2nd/10th Earl. William Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon (1475–1511), would marry Princess Catherine of the Royal House of York, a younger daughter of King Edward IV, bringing the Earls of Devon very close to the line of succession to the English throne.