Joinville

The lords of Joinville were a family of Champagne who held the castle and lordship of Joinville from the eleventh century and served as hereditary seneschals of the counts of Champagne. Their most famous member was John of Joinville, born in 1224.

He joined Louis IX on the Seventh Crusade in 1244, was captured with the king at Al Mansurah in 1250 and helped negotiate the ransom, then spent four years at his side in the Holy Land. He refused to follow Louis on the Tunis crusade of 1270, when the king died outside Tunis.

John testified at the inquest into the king's sanctity in 1282, and wrote his Life of Saint Louis at Queen Jeanne of Navarre's request, completing it in 1309. He died in 1317. The family ruled Joinville until 1365 and became extinct in the following century.