Theobald III, Count of Champagne

Theobald III
Count of Champagne
Seal of Theobald III
Spouse(s)	Blanche of Navarre
Issue Theobald IV of Champagne
Noble family	Blois
Father	Henry I, Count of Champagne
Mother	Marie of France
Born	13 May 1179 Troyes
Died	24 May 1201 (aged 22) Troyes

Theobald III (French: Thibaut) (13 May 1179 – 24 May 1201) was Count of Champagne from 1197 to his death. He was the younger son of Henry I, Count of Champagne and Marie, a daughter of Louis VII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine.^[1] He succeeded as Count of Champagne in 1197 upon the death of his older brother Henry II.^[2]

Charters were written by him and 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. There was little enthusiasm for the crusade at first, but on November 28, 1199, various nobles of France gathered at Theobald's court for a tournament (in his Ecry-sur-Aisne's castle), 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.

Theobald married Blanche of Navarre^[1] on July 1, 1199 at Chartres. They had two children:

• Marie
• Theobald IV^[1]

As her dower, Blanche received Theobald's seven castles – Épernay, Vertus, Sézanne, Chantemerle, Pont-sur-Seine, Nogent-sur-Seine, and Méry-sur-Seine – and all the subsidiaries coming from these castles and castellaries at the Count's death. Following Theobald's death on May 24, 1201, she was to rule as regent for the following 21 years,^[3] during which the succession was contested by Theobald's nieces, Alice and Philippa.^[4]

Theobald was buried beside his father, Henry, at the Church of Saint Stephen at Troyes.

Ancestry

Ancestors of Theobald III, Count of Champagne

16. Theobald III, Count of Blois               8. Stephen II, Count of Blois                       17. Garsinde du Maine               4. Thibaut II of Champagne                             18. William I of England               9. Adela of Normandy                       19. Matilda of Flanders               2. Henry I, Count of Champagne                                   20. Engelbert I of Sponheim               10. Engelbert, Duke of Carinthia                       21. Hedwig               5. Matilda of Carinthia                             11. Uta of Passau                       1. Theobald III, Count of Champagne                                         24. Philip I of France               12. Louis VI of France                       25. Bertha of Holland               6. Louis VII of France                             26. Humbert II, Count of Savoy               13. Adelaide of Maurienne                       27. Gisela of Burgundy               3. Marie of France                                   28. William IX, Duke of Aquitaine               14. William X of Aquitaine                       29. Philippa of Toulouse               7. Eleanor of Aquitaine                             30. Aimery I, Viscount of Châtellerault               15. Aenor de Châtellerault                       31. Dangereuse de l'Isle Bouchard

Notes

1. Theodore Evergates, The Aristocracy in the County of Champagne, 1100-1300, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 248.
2. Theodore Evergates, The Aristocracy in the County of Champagne, 1100-1300, 34.
3. Theodore Evergates, The Aristocracy in the County of Champagne, 1100-1300, 36-37.
4. Theodore Evergates, The Aristocracy in the County of Champagne, 1100-1300, 39.