Geoffrey IV of Joinville

Geoffrey IV (died August 1190), called the Younger (French Geoffroy le Jeune), was the Lord of Joinville from 1188 until his death on the Third Crusade two years later. He is surnamed Valet by Alberic of Trois-Fontaines.

Geoffrey was the only son of Geoffrey III the Old and his wife, Felicity (Félicité) of Brienne. His mother's first husband, Simon I of Broyes, died sometime before 1132 and Geoffrey was born to her second marriage before 1141. By 1179, he was assisting his elderly father in the government of Joinville. In Geoffrey III's last years, his son seems to have been exercising the lordship in his father's name. He succeeded to it only on his father's death in 1188.

Sometime before his accession, Geoffrey married Héluis (Helvide), a daughter of the crusader Guy I of Dampierre. They had six sons and two daughters, all listed by Alberic of Trois-Fontaines. The order of the sons is their birth order:

While his father had been seneschal of the county of Champagne, an office later hereditary in the Joinville family, it is not clear if Geoffrey IV inherited this office. There is no record either in his own charters or those of the count of him as seneschal.

In his first recorded act, in 1188, Geoffrey recognised the collegiate church of Saint-Laurent in Joinville as his family's particular chapel and renounced for himself and his descendants the right to construct a chapel in the castle of Joinville. This charter was witnessed by his wife and his children. The future Geoffrey V is identified as the (uterine) brother of Hugh III of Broyes. The close relationship between the Joinville and Broyes families explains the similarity of their coats of arms.

In 1189, Geoffrey, with the consent of his two eldest sons, granted his vineyard at Mussey to the abbey of Saint-Urbain in return for mass being said for his father every year on the anniversary of his death. He also confirmed his father's donation for the founding of the priory of Saint-Jacques. At the same time, he granted the tithes of Charmes-en-l'Angle, to which he had right, to establish a prebend at Saint-Laurent for saying annual masses for himself and Héluis and for two masters: Acelin, teacher of his son William, and a certain Constant.

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