Godman, Peter. Poets and Emperors: Frankish Politics and
Carolingian Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
McKitterick, Rosamond, ed. Carolingian Culture: Emulation and
Innovation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Helene Scheck
THIBAUT DE CHAMPAGNE (1201–1253)
The most illustrious of the trouvères and one of the most
prolifi c, Thibaut IV, count of Champagne and king of
Navarre, grandson of the great patroness of poets Marie
de Champagne, was also an important political fi gure.
After several years’ education at the royal court of Philip
II Augustus, young Thibaut began his life as a ruler un-
der the regency of his mother, Blanche of Navarre. He
later took part in the war of the newly crowned Louis
VIII against the English, appearing at the siege of La
Rochelle in 1224, and continued to serve the king, his
overlord, thereafter. In 1226, however, he withdrew his
support during the royal siege of Avignon and returned
home in secret. Upon the king’s death a few months
later, Thibaut was accused of having poisoned him, but
nothing came of this apparently groundless charge. The
following year, he allied himself with other feudal pow-
ers in an attempt to dethrone Blanche of Castile, widow
of Louis VIII and regent for their son Louis IX, but the
queen succeeded in detaching him from the rebellious
group and making him her defender. Attacked by his
erstwhile allies, Thibaut was saved by the royal army.
Thibaut’s relations with the crown, however, were
unsteady, particularly after 1234, when he succeeded
his uncle Sancho the Strong as king of Navarre, and
it was not until 1236 that a fi nal peace was achieved,
based on the vassal’s submission. Three years later, he
left for the Holy Land as head of the crusade of 1239;
the undertaking was marked from the start by discord
among the Christian leaders and by Muslim military
superiority, the result of which was Thibaut’s decision in
1240 to withdraw from his charge and return to France.
There, armed struggles engaged his attention through
the following years, and in 1248 he made a penitent’s
pilgrimage to Rome. He died in Pamplona. He had been
betrothed twice, married three times, divorced once,
widowed once, and had fathered several children. The
rumor has persisted since his day that the great love of
his life was none other than Blanche of Castile, but apart
from offering a tempting key to his political shifts, it
seems to have no merit.
As a trouvère, Thibaut was immediately successful,
seen as equaled only by his great predecessor Gace
Brulé. Dante was to consider him one of the “illustrious”
poets in the vernacular, and the medieval songbooks
that group their contents by composer place his works
before all others. The over sixty pieces ascribed to him
with reasonable certainty, almost all preserved with
music, show a majority of courtly chansons, none anti-
conventional in theme or form but most marked by an
unusual development of imagery, especially allegorical,
use of refrains, or self-confi dent lightness of tone. The
other works, revealing a style similarly characteristic
of Thibaut, are jeux-partis (among the earliest known),
debates, devotional songs (including one in the form of
a lai), crusade songs, pastourelles, and a serventois.
See also Blanche of Castile; Louis IX;
Philip II AugustusFurther Reading
Brahney, Kathleen J., ed. and trans. The Lyrics of Thibaut de
Champagne. New York: Garland, 1988.
van der Werf, Hendrik, ed. Trouvères-Melodien II. Kassel: Bären-
reiter, 1979, pp. 3–311.
Wallensköld, Axel,ed. Les chansons de Thibaut de Champagne,
roi de Navarre. Paris: Champion, 1925.
Bellenger, Yvonne, and Danielle Quéruel,eds. Thibaut de Cham-
pagne, prince et poète au XIIIe siècle. Lyon: La Manufacture,
1987.
Samuel N. RosenbergTHIETMAR OF MERSEBURG
(975–1008/1018)
Born into the comital house of Walbeck in eastern
Saxony, Thietmar received his primary education at
the royal convent of Quedlinburg. In 987, his father
transferred him from Quedlinburg to the monastery of
Berge, outside of Magdeburg. Thietmar remained at
Berge for three years, continuing his education, appar-
ently with the expectation that he would eventually join
the community. When a place could not be obtained for
him there, he was moved to the cathedral at Magdeburg
(November 1, 990). Thietmar studied at the cathedral’s
school, then among the empire’s preeminent centers
of learning, and was formally admitted to the chapter
circa 1000, during the reign of Archbishop Giselher.
Professional advancement came to him during the
reign of Giselher’s successor, Archbishop Tagino. The
archbishop elevated him to the priesthood in 1004 at a
ceremony attended by Emperor Henry II, and thereafter
he seems to have joined the archbishop’s entourage. It
was due to Tagino’s favor, moreover, that Thietmar was
chosen by Henry II to succeed the recently deceased
bishop of the see of Merseburg (1008). As Bishop of
Merseburg, Thietmar inherited a host of problems deriv-
ing from that diocese’s troubled history. Emperor Otto I
had founded the bishopric in 968, in conjunction with his
elevation of Magedeburg to the status of archbishopric.
For a variety of reasons, it was suppressed in 981, its
property being divided among neighboring dioceses and
its cathedral transformed into a proprietary monastery
of the archbishops of Magdeburg. Although the diocese
was restored by Henry II in 1004, its boundaries andTHIETMAR OF MERSEBURG