Theobald II, Count of Champagne

Theobald was the son of Count Stephen II of Blois and Adela of Normandy,[1] and the elder brother of King Stephen of England. Although he was the second son, Theobald was appointed above his older brother William. Several historians have painted William as mentally deficient, but this has never been substantiated. However, we know that his mother found him stubbornly resistant to control and unfit for wide-ranging comital duties. Theobald had no such problems. Theobald accompanied his mother throughout their domain on hundreds of occasions and, after her retirement to Marcigney in 1125, he administered the family properties with great skill. Adela died in her beloved convent on 8 March 1137, the year after her son Stephen was crowned king of England.[2]

King Louis VII of France became involved in a war with Theobald by permitting Count Raoul I of Vermandois and seneschal of France, to repudiate his wife Eleanor, Theobald's sister, and to marry Petronilla of Aquitaine, sister of Louis VII's wife, Eleanor. The war, which lasted two years (1142–1144), was marked by the occupation of Champagne by the royal army and the capture of Vitry-le-François, where 1500 people perished in the deliberate burning of the church by Louis.[3] The scholastic Pierre Abélard, famous for his love affair with and subsequent marriage to his student Héloïse d'Argenteuil, sought asylum in Champagne during Theobald II's reign. Abelard died at Cluny Abbey in Burgundy, a monastery supported by the Thebaudians for many centuries.

In 1123 he married Matilda of Carinthia, daughter of Duke Engelbert of Carinthia.[4]

Their children were:

• Henry I of Champagne[4]
• Theobald V of Blois, seneschal of France[4]
• Adela of Champagne, married King Louis VII of France[4]
• Isabelle of Champagne, married 1. Roger III of Apulia d. 1148,[1] 2. William Gouet IV d. 1170
• Marie of Champagne, married Odo II of Burgundy, became Abbess of Fontevrault later in life.[5]
• Stephen I of Sancerre 1133–1191, Count of Sancerre[4] and crusader, died at the Siege of Acre
• William White Hands, 1135–1202, Archbishop of Reims 1176–1202, Cardinal 1179[4]
• Agnes of Champagne (d. 1207), Dame de Ligny married Renaut II of Bar (d. 1170).[5]
• Margaret of Champagne, nun at Fontevrault
• Matilda, wife of Rotrou IV of Perche[6]

Theobald had an illegitimate son, Hugh, (d.1171), abbot of Lagny near Paris.[4]

• Peace with honor

• Baldwin, John W. (2002). Aristocratic Life in Medieval France. Johns Hopkins University.
• Cline, Ruth Harwood (2007). "Abbot Hugh: An Overlooked Brother of Henry I, Count of Champagne". The Catholic Historical Review. Catholic University of America Press. Vol. 93, No. 3 (July).
• Dunbabin, Jean (1985). France in the Making, 943-1180. Oxford University Press.
• Fassler, Margot Elsbeth (2010). The Virgin of Chartres: Making History Through Liturgy and the Arts. Yale University Press.
• Kaeuper, Richard W. (2016). Medieval Chivalry. Cambridge University Press.
• LoPrete, Kimberly (2007). Adela, Countess and Lord. Fourcourts Press.