Joscelin III of Edessa

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Joscelin III of Edessa (died 1200) was the titular Count of Edessa 1159–1200. He was the son of Joscelin II of Edessa and his wife Beatrice. He inherited the title of "Count of Edessa" from his father, Joscelin II, although Edessa had been captured in 1144 and its remnants (including the Lordship of Turbessel) conquered or sold years before he took the title.

Joscelin lived in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and managed to gather enough land around Acre to set up the Seigneurie of Joscelin. His sister, Agnes of Courtenay, was the wife of King Amalric I and mother of Baldwin IV. In 1164 Joscelin was taken captive by Nur ad-Din at the Battle of Harim, and remained a prisoner until 1176 when Agnes paid his ransom. His nephew Baldwin then made him seneschal of Jerusalem. He faced some rivalry from the king's paternal kindred, led by Raymond III, count of Tripoli.

In 1180 Joscelin became an ambassador to the Byzantine Empire, replacing William of Tyre, who had lost influence in the royal court. In 1184, about the time his sister died, he became guardian of the young Baldwin V while Raymond III was regent. This was in part to balance the two factions, and also because Raymond feared that, if he were the child's personal guardian, he would be blamed if he died in his care. When Baldwin died at Acre in 1186, Joscelin, together with the boy's grandfather William V of Montferrat, escorted his coffin to Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Raymond went to Nablus to attempt a coup with Balian of Ibelin to install Isabella of Jerusalem as queen. This failed.

At the Battle of Hattin in 1187, Joscelin commanded the rearguard with Balian of Ibelin. Both escaped the disastrous defeat and fled to Tyre. Joscelin played little role in the Third Crusade and the politics of the Kingdom in the 1190s; he died at some point between 1190-1200.

He married Agnes of Milly, daughter of Henry of Milly, Lord of Petra, by whom he had two daughters:

Beatrice (d. aft. 1245), who married 1. William of Valence, brother of Guy of Lusignan, in 1186; 2. Otto von Henneberg, Count of Botenlauben
Agnes, married William of Amandolea, a Norman from Calabria, who became Lord of Scandeleon

Joscelin's seigneurie was bought from his daughters by Hermann of Salza, the master of the Teutonic Knights, in 1220.