Guigues IV or Guy IV (died 10 August. or 29 October. 1241) was the

count of Forez Forez is a former province of France, corresponding approximately to the central part of the modern Loire ''département'' and a part of the Haute-Loire and Puy-de-Dôme ''départements''. The final "z" in Forez () is not pronounced in the Loire ...

Auxerre Auxerre ( , ) is the capital of the Yonne department and the fourth-largest city in Burgundy. Auxerre's population today is about 35,000; the urban area (''aire d'attraction'') comprises roughly 113,000 inhabitants. Residents of Auxerre are r ...

and Tonnerre from 1203 and the

count of Nevers The counts of Nevers were the rulers of the County of Nevers, which became a French duchy in 1539, with the rulers of the duchy calling themselves dukes. History The history of the County of Nevers is closely connected to the Duchy of Burgundy. ...

from 1226. He was still a child when his father, Guigues III, died on the

Fourth Crusade The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid S ...

and he inherited Forez. His mother was Alix and his uncle,

Renaud Renaud Pierre Manuel Séchan (), known as Renaud (), born 11 May 1952, is a French singer, songwriter and actor. His characteristically 'broken' voice makes for a very distinctive vocal style. Several of his songs are popular classics in F ...

archbishop of Lyon The Archdiocese of Lyon (Latin: ''Archidiœcesis Lugdunensis''; French: ''Archidiocèse de Lyon''), formerly the Archdiocese of Lyon–Vienne–Embrun, is a Latin Church metropolitan archdiocese of the Catholic Church in France. The Archbishops o ...

, acted as regent until he came of age in 1218. Guigues's first wife was Mahaut, daughter of Guy II of Dampierre. In 1223, Guigues granted a communal charter to the town of Montbrison. On 16 April 1224, he returned the places of Saint-Rambert, Bonson,

Chambles Chambles () is a commune in the Loire department in central France. The commune has an area of 18.90 km2 and its altitude ranges from 360 to 741 meters. As of 2019, there were 522 dwellings in Chambles, of which 420 main residences.

, Saint-Cyprien and Saint-Just to the monastery of Île Barbe, declaring that they were allods held freely and that he and his predecessors had unjustly possessed them. In 1224, Guigues also founded a

collegiate church In Christianity, a collegiate church is a church where the daily office of worship is maintained by a college of canons: a non-monastic or "secular" community of clergy, organised as a self-governing corporate body, which may be presided over by ...

of thirteen canons at Montbrison, dedicating it to the Virgin Mary. The foundation of Notre-Dame-d'Espérance was confirmed by Archbishop Renaud in October 1224. The charter of foundation mandated that the canons be in residence for at least six months of the year. In 1226, Guigues married

Matilda Matilda or Mathilda may refer to: Animals * Matilda (chicken) (1990–2006), World's Oldest Living Chicken record holder * Matilda (horse) (1824–1846), British Thoroughbred racehorse * Matilda, a dog of the professional wrestling tag-team The ...

, daughter of Peter II of Courtenay, countess of Nevers and widow of Hervé IV of Donzy. With the death of her son-in-law, Guy of Châtillon, at the siege of Avignon that same year, Guigues became count of Nevers. In 1235, Guigues joined the

Barons' Crusade The Barons' Crusade (1239–1241), also called the Crusade of 1239, was a crusade to the Holy Land that, in territorial terms, was the most successful crusade since the First Crusade. Called by Pope Gregory IX, the Barons' Crusade broadly embodi ...

. He came from an illustrious crusading family. His father had gone on the

and his ancestor Count William III had joined the

First Crusade The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic ...

. Likewise, his wife's family had crusaders in every generation going back to the Crusade of 1101. Guigues IV's primary motivation for crusading was to remove the sentence of

excommunication Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...

that had been placed him for the alleged spoliation of monasteries and sheltering heretics.. Likewise, by taking the crusader vow Guigues received relief from interest payments on his large debts and extensions on repayment of principal. When the Barons' Crusade finally set out in 1239, Guigues left his counties under the government of Matilda in his absence. He and his retinue—at least a chaplain, William of Vichy; two squires; and a physician—were part of the army of King Theobald I of Navarre. Theobald's

county of Bar-sur-Seine The county of Bar-sur-Seine was a compact lordship in France during the Middle Ages. Its seat, Bar-sur-Seine, lies on a Gallo-Roman site, but is only attested from the ninth century. It became of strategic importance in the twelfth century, as an ...

bordered Guigues's county of Nevers and in the 1220s the two had a brief boundary dispute. Theobald left the Holy Land to return home in September 1240, Guigues and Duke

Hugh IV of Burgundy Hugh IV of Burgundy (9 March 1213 – 27 or 30 October 1272) was Duke of Burgundy between 1218 and 1272 and from 1266 until his death was titular King of Thessalonica. Hugh was the son of Odo III, Duke of Burgundy and Alice de Vergy. Issue Hugh m ...

stayed behind to construct a fortress at Ascalon. The poet Eustache le Peintre de Reims wrote a short song in

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...

, ''Amours, coment porroie chancon faire'', about Guigues's participation in the Crusade. While in the Holy Land, Guigues received a relic of the

True Cross The True Cross is the cross upon which Jesus was said to have been crucified, particularly as an object of religious veneration. There are no early accounts that the apostles or early Christians preserved the physical cross themselves, althoug ...

from the Master of the Temple, Armand de Périgord. He died at

Castellaneta Castellaneta (Tarantino: ) is a city and ''comune'' in the province of Taranto in the Apulia region of Southern Italy, about from Taranto. Located in a territory spanning from the Murgia to the Ionian Sea, characterized by numerous ''gravina'' ...

in Italy while returning from his crusade. His body was brought back to Forez and lies in the church he had founded at Montbrison.. In his will, Guigues names his two children: his successor, Guigues V, and his younger son,

. He expressed the wish that Renaud would enter the church. He left the relic of the cross to his eldest son. He named as his executors Jean de Bernin, the

archbishop of Vienne The Archbishopric of Vienne, named after its episcopal seat in Vienne in the Isère département of southern France, was a metropolitan Roman Catholic archdiocese. It is now part of the Archdiocese of Lyon. History The legend according to whi ...

; Beatrice, the countess of Albon; the abbot of Bénissons-Dieu; and the dean of Montbrison.

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