William IV, (French: ''Guillaume IV'', c. 1130 –

Acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

, 24 October 1168) was

count of Nevers The counts of Nevers were the rulers of the County of Nevers, in France, The territory became a duchy in the peerage of France in 1539 under the dukes of Nevers. History The history of the County of Nevers is closely connected to the Duchy of Bu ...

Auxerre Auxerre ( , , Burgundian language (Oïl), Burgundian: ''Auchoirre'') is the capital (Prefectures in France, prefecture) of the Yonne Departments of France, department and the fourth-largest city in the Burgundy historical region southeast of Par ...

, and Tonnerre from 1161 until his death.

Family

William was a son of William III, Count of Nevers and Ida of Sponheim, and the older brother of his successor

Guy, Count of Nevers Guy (French: ''Guy'' or ''Gui'', died 19 October 1175), was count of Nevers and Auxerre. He was the son of William III, Count of Nevers and Ida of Sponheim. He married Matilda, granddaughter of Duke Hugh II of Burgundy, just prior to his leaving ...

. In 1164, William married Eleanor of Vermandois. Their marriage was childless.

Crusades

William was knighted in 1159, only two years prior to the death of his father. He and his brothers, Guy and Reynold, are considered to have been quite young at the time of William III's death; Guy was still mentioned as underage in 1164. William IV resided in the chateaux of Nevers and of Clamecy (present day department of the

Nièvre Nièvre () is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, central-east France. Named after the river Nièvre, it had a population of 204,452 in 2019.Burgundy Burgundy ( ; ; Burgundian: ''Bregogne'') is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. ...

, France). The next nearest town to the east of Clamecy is Vezelay, which, in the early medieval period, was the marshalling point for the start of several

crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

to the

Holy Land The term "Holy Land" is used to collectively denote areas of the Southern Levant that hold great significance in the Abrahamic religions, primarily because of their association with people and events featured in the Bible. It is traditionall ...

Vézelay Abbey Vézelay Abbey () is a Order of St. Benedict, Benedictine and Cluniac monastery in Vézelay in the east-central French department of Yonne. It was constructed between 1120 and 1150. The Benedictine abbey church, now the Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Ma ...

was often in conflict with the counts of Nevers. William IV had his provost Léthard force the monks to take flight and abandon the abbey. In 1166,

Louis VII of France Louis VII (1120 – 18 September 1180), called the Younger or the Young () to differentiate him from his father Louis VI, was King of France from 1137 to 1180. His first marriage was to Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the wealthiest and ...

arranged a reconciliation between William IV and Guillaume de Mello,

abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

of Vézelay. On 6 January 1167 ( Epiphany), Louis VII attended the celebration over the reconciliation. In

atonement Atonement, atoning, or making amends is the concept of a person taking action to correct previous wrongdoing on their part, either through direct action to undo the consequences of that act, equivalent action to do good for others, or some othe ...

for his supposed crimes against the church, William set out for the

Crusader states The Crusader states, or Outremer, were four Catholic polities established in the Levant region and southeastern Anatolia from 1098 to 1291. Following the principles of feudalism, the foundation for these polities was laid by the First Crusade ...

. In 1168,

William of Tyre William of Tyre (; 29 September 1186) was a Middle Ages, medieval prelate and chronicler. As Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tyre, archbishop of Tyre, he is sometimes known as William II to distinguish him from his predecessor, William I of Tyr ...

records the arrival of the Count of Nevers in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. In the meantime, Amalric I was preparing for the invasion of Egypt. However, William died shortly afterwards, and he was buried in

Bethlehem Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of people, as of . The city's economy is strongly linked to Tourism in the State of Palesti ...

. Later on, most of his knights participated in Amalric's campaign, and were probably responsible for the massacre of the population of

Bilbeis Bilbeis ( ; Bohairic ' is an ancient fortress city on the eastern edge of the southern Nile Delta in Egypt, the site of the ancient city and former bishopric of Phelbes and a Latin Catholic titular see. The city is small in size but dens ...

Bishopric of Bethlehem

Before his death in 1168, he promised the bishop of Bethlehem that if

should ever fall into Muslim hands, he would welcome him or his successors in Clamecy. After the capture of Bethlehem by

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

in 1187, the bequest of the now deceased count was honoured and the bishop of Bethlehem duly took up residence in the Hospital of Panthenor, Clamecy, which remained the continuous '' in partibus infidelium'' seat of the Bishopric of Bethlehem for almost 600 years until the French Revolution in 1789.de Sivry, L: "Dictionnaire de Geographie Ecclesiastique", page 375., 1852 ed, from ecclesiastical record of letters between the Bishops of Bethlehem 'in partibus' to the bishops of Auxerre.

References

;Sources *''Hugonis Pictavini Libro de Libertate Monasterii Vizeliacensis''.
An image of a coin from Nevers, dating to his reignpage of "The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages" by Francis Oakley, mentioning William
{{DEFAULTSORT:William Iv, Count Of Nevers 1130s births 1168 deaths Counts of Nevers Counts of Auxerre