Thibaut IV (1201-1253), Count of Champagne and Brie, and, as Thibaut I, King of Navarre, was probably the greatest trouvère.

Born in Troyes, the capital of Champagne, on May 30, 1201, shortly after the death of his father, Thibaut at birth was Count of Champagne and Brie. Troyes had a long tradition of courtly poetry. Thibaut's grandmother, Marie, the great-granddaughter of the first troubadour, had established a brilliant court there and patronized several of the most famous poets of the 1170s, among them Chrestien de Troyes, the creator of the romances about Lancelot, Parsifal, and others.

At the death of her husband, Thibaut's mother asked for royal protection, in exchange for which Thibaut was obliged to serve several years at court and later to accompany the successive French kings on their military campaigns. Among these was the Albigensian Crusade, a disastrous civil war that crushed the south of...