Jean I. de Grailly
Jean I de Grailly ( † around 1301 ) was a knight and vassal of the English king Edward I. He is the founder of the House Grailly.
Jean came from Burgundy and probably had dominion over the castle of Grilly on Lake Geneva. In the wake of Count Peter of Savoy in 1252, he came to the English court. Since 1262 he belonged to the household of Crown Prince Edward Plantagenet, of which he was in 1266 appointed seneschal of Gascony. There he received the castle Bénauges a private fiefdom, near which he founded in 1280 the city Cadillac.
As of 1270, Jean participated in the Edward side of the crusade to the Holy Land. There he took over 1272-1278 the office of seneschal of Jerusalem, which the military high command was connected to the Christian troops. Back home, he was diplomatically for the nunmehrigen King Edward I worked in France and was in negotiations with King Philip III. involved, which in 1279 led to the Treaty of Amiens by the French crown ceded the Agenois of Gascony, which in turn was a fief of King Edward. In the following years, Jean came to King Edward in disgrace after he had abused his position for self- enrichment as seneschal of Gascony. He therefore left his possessions in Gascony to his son Pierre and left the country.
Jean was drawn again to the Holy Land, where he took command in 1289 of the French regiment of Acre. An attempt besieged by the Mamluk Tripoli to shock but failed. He then traveled to Rome to meet Pope Nicholas IV on the existence -threatening situation of Christians in Palestine to draw attention. However, a papal call to the rulers of Europe for help for the Christian Orient found little resonance, only some of Lombard and Tuscan mercenaries were recruited and were transported to 20 Venetian galleys under the leadership of Dogensohnes to Acre. There, Jean led in 1291 to the French troops in the defense of the city. He was, however, like his compatriot Otton de Grandson, badly wounded, but was brought to a saving ship shortly before the fall of the city.
For the rest of his life Jean in his home in Grilly. His descendants played during the Hundred Years War still play a role and went on to the high nobility of France.