Eustach III. (Boulogne)

Eustach III. (* before 1060; † after 1125) from the House of Boulogne was Count of Boulogne and Count of Lens from 1088 to 1125.

He was the son of Count Eustach II and the canonized Ida of Boulogne ( Wigeriche ). His brothers Gottfried von Bouillon and Balduin von Boulogne were the later leaders of the First Crusade .

His father died between 1070 and 1082. Gottfried von Bouillon had inherited the Duchy of Lower Lorraine in 1084 and Eustach received the counties of Boulogne and Lens for himself in 1088. In 1096 he joined the First Crusade with his brothers Gottfried and Balduin and took part in the Siege of Jerusalem and the Battle of Ascalon . But then he probably returned to Europe to take care of his property. Around 1102 he married Mary of Scotland , daughter of King Malcolm III. ; he tried to form an alliance against the Normansforging, which ruled England and Normandy since 1066. He himself must have had property in England, since he had coins struck with his name in York . His father had participated in the invasion of England in 1066 on the side of the Normans.

After the death of Baldwin (who had been king of Jerusalem since 1100 ) on April 2, 1118, his successor was proposed to him; he showed little interest, but was persuaded (especially since his wife had also died on April 18), and began his second trip to Jerusalem. In Apulia , however, he learned that Baldwin of Bourcq had been crowned in the meantime , whereupon he turned back.

In 1125 he married his daughter Mathilda von Boulogne to Stephan von Blois , resigned in the same year and entered the Cluny monastery . After that his track is lost.

In addition to his daughter, Eustach III. two more illegitimate sons of an unknown woman, Raoul and Eustache, both of whom seem to date from the time of his widowhood: Both are mentioned in 1120, Raoul again in 1122, and it is also known that he died young.

literature

• M. Prévost, Roman d'Amat , H. Thibout de Morembert (eds.): Dictionnaire de Biographie Française . Volume 13. Letouzey et Ané, Paris 1975.
• Alain Lottin: Histoire de Boulogne-sur-Mer . Le Téméraire, 1983. ISBN 2-84399-015-7 .
• Alan V. Murray: The crusader Kingdom of Jérusalem, A Dynastic History 1099-1125. Linacre College, Oxford 2000. ISBN 1-900934-03-5 .

Web links

• Eustach III. at medieval-genealogie.de

predecessor	Office	successor
Eustach II	Count of Boulogne 1088-1125	Mathilda
Eustach II	Earl of Lens 1088-1125	Mathilda