Everything about Stephen I Of Sancerre totally explained
Stephen I (
1133-
1190), first Count of
Sancerre (
1151-
1190) and third son of Count
Theobald II of Champagne, inherited the county of Sancerre on his father's death, when his eldest brother
Henry received Champagne and his elder brother
Theobald Blois and
Chartres. His holdings were the smallest amongst the brothers (though
William received none and entered the church, becoming
archbishop of Rheims) and he was originally a vassal, along with Theobald, of Henry.
Like many members of his family, he was prominent in the
Crusades and, in
1169, he was offered the hand in marriage of
Amalric I of Jerusalem's daughter
Sibylla by a diplomatic delegation led by
Frederick de la Roche,
archbishop of Tyre. He accepted and travelled east with
Hugh III of Burgundy and a gift of money from
Louis VII of France in
1171.
It was anticipated that he may some day be king in right of his wife, the rightful heir of Amalric being the leprous
Baldwin. In light of this, the
Haute Cour invited him to decide the case of the division of the sonless Henry the Buffalo's estate among his three daughters. Stephen divied it up equally, but ordered the younger two to do homage to the eldest. However, the marriage never took place. For reasons unknown, Stephen refused to marry Sibylla and returned home.
In Sancerre, Stephen built a six-towered castle on the local hill and strengthened the fortifications of the town of Sancerre itself. In
1153, he married the daughter of
Godfrey of Donzy, named Adelaide, Alice, or Matilda. In
1155, he granted the
Customs of Lorris to the merchants of the town and probably seven others. He was the
de facto leader among a group of powerful baronial rebels against King
Philip Augustus between
1181 and
1185. In
1184, he and a band of
Brabançon mercenaries were defeated by the king and his
Confrères de la Paix, an organisation of warriors formed in
1182 in
Le Puy dedicated to curbing feudal warfare. In
1190, he commenced the abolition of
serfdom in his domains, a trend in his family it seems, for his nephew
Louis I of Blois did the same in
1196.
Stephen and his brothers went to the Orient (his second time) on the
Third Crusade in 1190. He died before 21 October
1190 at the
Siege of Acre, and Theobald died there a few months later in January
1191. His son by Alice-Matilda, William, succeeded him.
Sources
- Bernard Hamilton. The Leper King and his Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
- Peter W. Edbury. The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade. Ashgate, 1998.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Stephen I Of Sancerre'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://stephen_i_of_sancerre.totallyexplained.com">Stephen I of Sancerre Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
