Count of Flanders (1128-1168) and participant in four separate expeditions to Outremer.
Thierry was born shortly after 1095 at Bitche in Alsace, a son of Thierry II, duke of Upper Lotharingia, and Gertrude, daughter of Count Robert I of Flanders. In 1128 he emerged as the victorious claimant to the county of Flanders from the civil war that had broken out on the murder of Count Charles the Good (1127). After the death of his first wife, Swanehilde (1133), Thierry married Sibyl, a daughter of Fulk V of Anjou, who by this time had become king of Jerusalem as husband of Queen Melisende.
In 1139 Thierry went to the Holy Land and participated in an expedition beyond the river Jordan, returning to Flanders before Christmas. He attended the meeting at Vezelay (31 March 1146) in preparation for the Second Crusade (1147-1149) and traveled to the East with the army of King Louis VII of France. He was present at the council of crusade leaders on 24 June 1148 that decided on the campaign against Muslim Damascus. During the siege of the city he declared he would hold the town as a fief from his brother-in-law King Baldwin III, but this was opposed by the barons of the kingdom of Jerusalem. This disagreement may have contributed to the abandonment of the siege. He returned home in the spring of 1149.
In 1157 Thierry came to Outremer for the third time, accompanied by the Countess Sibyl and 400 knights, and took part in the siege of Shaizar (mod. Shayzar, Syria). King Baldwin III of Jerusalem had evidently promised the town to Thierry, but Reynald of Chatillon, prince of Antioch, disputed this decision and the siege was suspended. At Christmas 1157 Thierry was at the siege of Harenc (mod. Harim, Syria), which was captured early in February 1158, and the same year he took part in a victorious battle against Nur al-Din near Lake Tiberias (15 July 1158). In August 1159 the count was back in Flanders, while Sibyl remained in Palestine at the abbey of St. Lazarus at Bethany.
In 1164 Thierry came to Outremer for the last time but did not take part in military operations. Sibyl died during this visit (1165), and Thierry returned, reaching Flanders shortly after Christmas 1165. He died at Gravelines on 17 January 1168.
-Jan Anckaer
Bibliography
Coppieters-De Stochove, Hubert, “Voyages de Thierry d’Alsace en Orient,” Bulletijn derMaatschappij van Geschied - en Oudheidkunde te Gent 16 (1908), 159-163.
De Hemptinne, Therese, and Michel Parisse, “Thierry d’Alsace, comte de Flandre: Biographie et actes,” Annales de l’Est, ser. 5, 43 (1991), 83-113.
Hechelhammer, Bodo, “Die Kreuzfahrerin: Sibyhe von Anjou, Grafin von Flandern (*1110, t1165),” in Die Kreuzzuge: Kein Krieg ist heilig, ed. Hans-Jurgen Kotzur, Winfried Wilhelmy, and Brigitte Klein (Mainz: Von Zabern, 2004), pp. 229-233.
World History
