Theobald III, Count of Champagne

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Theobald (or Thibaut) III of Champagne (1179 – May 24, 1201) was Count of Champagne and Count of Troyes from 1197 to 1201.

Theobald was the younger son of Henry I of Champagne and Marie, a daughter of Louis VII of France. He succeeded as Count of Champagne in 1197 upon the death of his older brother Henry II.

Charters were written by he and Philip Augustus in September 1198 to dictate Jews' rights in accordance with one another's Jews retainment and to repay debts by Augustus to the count of Champagne for the Jews' employment. 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 the next year and was replaced by Boniface of Montferrat.

Theobald married Blanche of Navarre on July 1, 1199 at Chartres, and was succeeded by his posthumous son by Blanche of Navarre, Theobald IV. She was Theobald's dower thus receiving his seven castles (Epernay, 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. On May 24, 1201, she was to rule as regent for the following 21 years, during which the succession was contested by Theobald's nieces, Alice and Philippa of Champagne.

He was buried beside his father at the Church Saint Stephen, built at Troyes by the latter. On his tomb the inscriptions are:

"Intent upon making amends for the injuries of the Cross and the land of the Crucified
He paved a way with expenses, an army, a fleet.
Seeking the terrestrial city, he finds the one celestial;
While he is obtaining his goal far away, he finds it at home."