Theobald III (french: Thibaut; 13 May 1179 – 24 May 1201) was
Count of Champagne from 1197 to his death. He was designated heir by his older brother
Henry II when the latter went to the
Holy Land
The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Holy ...
on the
Third Crusade, and succeeded him upon his death. He cooperated closely with his uncle and suzerain King
Philip II of France. He died young, and was succeeded by a
posthumous son,
Theobald IV, while his widow,
Blanche of Navarre, ruled as
regent.
Family
Theobald III was the younger son of Count
Henry I of Champagne and
Marie of France. He succeeded as
count of Champagne in 1197 upon the death of his older brother
Henry II. Theobald married
Blanche of Navarre on 1 July 1199 at
Chartres
Chartres () is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 170,763 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Chartres (as d ...
. They had two children, a daughter, Marie, and a son,
Theobald IV, born after Theobald III's death.
Rule
Charters were written by Theobald and King
Philip II of France in September 1198 to dictate the rights of the
Jews of the one ''vis-à-vis'' the other and to repay debts by Philip to the count of Champagne for the employment of his Jews. These laws were reinforced subsequently in charters that were signed between 1198 and 1231.
In 1198,
Pope Innocent III called the
Fourth Crusade
The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid S ...
. There was little enthusiasm for the
crusade
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were i ...
at first, but on 28 November 1199 various nobles of France gathered at Theobald's court for a
tournament (in his castle at
Ecry-sur-Aisne), including the preacher
Fulk of Neuilly. There, they "took the cross", and elected Theobald their leader, but he died in 1201 and was replaced by
Boniface I, Marquess of Montferrat.
Following his death on 24 May 1201, Theobald's widow Blanche ruled Champagne as regent for the following 21 years, during which the succession was contested by Theobald's nieces
Alice
Alice may refer to:
* Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname
Literature
* Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll
* ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...
and
Philippa, daughters of his predecessor, Henry II. Theobald was buried beside his father, Henry, at the
Church of Saint Stephen at Troyes.
Genealogical table
Notes
References
Sources
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{{Authority control
Counts of Champagne
Christians of the Fourth Crusade
House of Blois
1201 deaths
1179 births
People from Troyes
13th-century peers of France