Theobald III, Count of Champagne

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. He succeeded as Count of Champagne in 1197 upon the death of his older brother Henry II.

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 28 November 1199 various nobles of France gathered at Theobald's court for a tournament (in his castle at Ecry-sur-Aisne), 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 on 1 July 1199 at Chartres. They had two children:

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, during which the succession was contested by Theobald's nieces, Alice and Philippa.

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